Baghdad

BAGHDAD

DURING

THE ABBASID CALIPHATE

LJE STRANGE

BAGHDAD

DURINCJ THE

ABBASID CALIPHATE

I'ROM

CONTEMPORARY ARABIC AND
PERSIAN SOURCES

G. LE STRANGE

AUTHOR OF ‘PALESTINE UNDER THE MOSLEMS’, ‘CORRESPONDENCE
OF PRINCESS LtKESM ^ND EARL GREY ETC.

WITH EIGHT PLANS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LpNDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD

TmpmHon M,-st Edition 1900

Tkis impression has

M..™. C.u..^,fron.sl..:oftiekst EdiL

the

Commkv

PaJ'^c: * Ltd.

RK Street, Camden Town. London. N.W. i

TO

STANLEY LANE-POOLE
IN REMEMBRANCE OF WORK DONE AND
IN EXPECTATION OF WORK
TO BE DONE

THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED

PREFACE

In the summer of the year 1883 it was my
good fortune to make the acquaintance of the
late Sir Henry Rawlinson, and the book which is
now at length published is due to his suggestion.
In the first place Sir Henry called my attention
to the Ibn Serapion MS., of which the British
Museum possesses an unique copy, and he urged
on me the desirability, by its means, of working
out the topography of mediaeval Baghdad ; assuring
me that, with the numerous articles on this subject
contained in the great Geographical Dictionary of
YSkht and other early authorities, a reconstruction
of the old plan of the city was quite feasible.
Ibn Serapion I published in the yonrml of the
Royal Asiatic Society (January, April, and October,

1895)-

Other occupations hindered the conclusion of the
present work; it took much longer than I had at
first imagined to sift and set in order the mass
of information scattered through the voluminous
writings of the Arab geographers and historians ;

■vaii Preface

a 3 id eveiv now a good deal iriight be added from
incidental notices, other than those which I have
found, in the later volumes of the Annals of Xabart,
if the Index to that great chronicle had been
available— but unfortunately diis has not yet been
published.

There is indeed no lack of material, as will be
seen by glancing over the names of contemporary
Arab Geographers given in the accompanying
Chrdnological Table (whidi the bibliographical
0st of Authorities completes) ; but the real basis
of the present reconstruction of the mediaeval plan
is the description of the Canals of Baghdad written
by I bn Serapion in about the year a. d. 900. By
combining the network of the water system, as
described by this writer, with the radiating high-
roads, as described by his contemporary Ya'khbi,
it has been possible to plot out the various quarters
of older Baghdad, filling in details from the accounts
of other authorities, which, taken alone, would have
proved too fragmentary to serve for any systematic
reconstruction of the plan.

As far as I am aware, no one has yet attempted
to write a complete history and draw the plan of
the great metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphs. A
beginning was indeed made by the late A. von
Kremer in his Kuliurgeschichie des Orimts lunter
den Chalifen (vol. ii. pp. 47-94) ; but unfortunately
this- went no furA single Chapter, giving

an account (derived from Ya'kfibi) of the original

JTTKjaLV

IX

burg, or Round City of MansAr, which was to later
Baghdad much what the City of London has come
to be in relation to greater London which now
encompasses it for miles on every side.

The bibliographical list of original Authorities
and Editions, given at the head of this work, is as
complete as I can make it, being more especially
intended to serve for the references in the notes ;
further, in the last three chapters some account
will be found of these various authors and the
nature of the description which each has left us of
Baghdad.

The system of transliteration adopted is that' now
commonly used ; but for the sake of brevity I have
generally omitted the Arabic article, A I, before the
names of the Caliphs, as also in many common
place-names : and for so doing the sufficient authority
of Silvestre de Sacy may be cited, who has followed
this system in his Religion des Druzes (see vol. i.
Introduction, p. v, note 2 ). It has the merit of
brevity, and while rendering these names less uncouth
to the English ear, makes them, I think, more easily
distinguishable to the eye.

In many plurabpames, such as Bazzdztn, Tustarlyin,
and the like, I have kept to the termination in tn
of the objective case (instead of writing Bazziztin,
Tustariytin) to avoid a double transcription, since
this i!«-form properly occurs in the full name — e, g.
Nahr-al-Bazz4zln, the Canal of the Cloth-merchants ;
Rabad-at-Tustariyin, die suburb of the people of

X Preface

Tustar; further, this is the post-classical form and
the one now in use. It has not been thought
necessary to mark dotted letters and long vowels
in the names of authors cited in the notes.

In mentioning dates, the years of the Hijrah are
given, with the year a. d. following in brackets,
which last is reckoned to be the year with which the
major part of the Mosleni year corresponds : thus
A.H. 200 beginning on August 1 1, a. d. 815, is given
as equivalent to A. D. 816.

The Map and Plans will serve to show what
I conclude to be the disposition of the various
quarters of the city as described in our authorities.
Nobody can be better aware of the shortcomings
of these Plans than I myself am, and they court
criticism from any who will take the trouble of going
through the evidence. * The course of the Tigris
has considerably changed during the . last thousand
years, of that there is ample proof, but it is not
so easy to say where exactly, at any specified epoch,
the bed of the river lay.

For modern Baghdad and its environs I have
followed the great plan of the city published by
Commander Felix Jones in his Memoirs, Bombay
Government Records, No. XLIII, New Series, 1857:
while the suiTounding country and the course of the
Tigris generally are given from the Map of Ancient
Babylon, in sik sheets, compiled by Mr. Trelawney
Saunders from the surveys of Felix Jones, Bew-
sher. Gollingwoodi, and Beaumont Selby, which was

Preface xi

published by Stanford in 1885 on the scale of 4,000
yards to the inch.

My plans of mediaeval Baghdad are, to a certain
extent, tentative; in the main lines of roads, and
the relative positions of the various quarters, how-
ever, but little question is likely to arise, since
the evidence is fairly complete. What is now more
especially needed is excavation on the spot to show
where, on the western side of the Tigris, the great
Mosque of MansAr stood, and on the eastern bank
what was the exact position of the Rusdfah Mosque.
Both these buildings appear to have been standing
in the middle of the fourteenth century of our era ;
and, since tiles or kiln-burnt bricks were largely used
rin their construction, some considerable vestiges of
their foundation-walls would certainly be found were
the mounds of rubbish, on either bank of the Tigris
above modern Baghdad, to be carefully examined.

I have many to thank for aid in the carrying
through of this work, and in the notes I have in
all cases acknowledged more special obligations.
For general bibliographical information, however,
I may take this opportunity of expressing my thanks
to both Professor Lane-Poole and to Mr. A. G.
Ellis, Assistant-Keeper of Oriental Books and MSS.
in the British Museum, and while recalling the names
of Mr. A. A. Bevan and of Mr. E. G. Browne of
Cambridge, who have always afforded me their
friendly advice and assistance, I must not close
my preface without recording how deeply I am

indebted to Professor De Goeje of Leyden for his
constant courtesy in answering many questions,
and in affording me every kind of information,
unstintedly, from his unrivalled knowledge of
mediaeval Arab geography and history.

G. LE STRANGE.

Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall.
Augmi^ 1900 .

CONTENTS

Bibuographical List of Authorities . . . xxv-xxviii
Chronological Table xxix-xxxi

CHAPTER I

THE FOUNDATION OF BAGHDAD

Previous capitals of Islam. Medina and Kdfah. Damascus.

The fall of the Omayyads. Need of a new capital for the
Abbasid dynasty. The two Hdshimtyahs. The Rdwandt insur-
rection. Courses followed by the Euphrates and Tigris during
the Middle Ages. Mansdr chooses the site of Baghdad* An
Assyrian Bs^hdad; Etymology of the name. Az-Zawrd. and
Ar-Raw^i. The legend of the name Mikl&§; Sdk Baghdad.

The advantages of the situation of Baghdad . . . pp. 1-14

CHAPTER II

THE CITY OF MANSOrR

The foundation of the Round City. Shfah insurrection : delays.

No traces of the Round City now extant. Plan marked out in
cinders ; Abu ^anti^. The Four Gates. Measurements. The
Central Area, and the Palace of the Golden Gate. The Con-
centric Walls. Bricks used. The origin of the Gates. Descrip-
tion of thoroughfare going from outer Gate to Central Area.

The original Markets and Arcades. The Prison, and the Central
Area. The Water-conduits 15-29

CHAPTER III

THE CITY OF MANSt^R {continued)

The Palace of the Golden Gate, and the DtwAns or Public
Offices. The history of the Great Mosque of Mansur. Khd,lid
the Barmecide and the Palace of the Chosroes. Sums spent, .
The Khuld Palace outside the Khuris^n Gate. The foundation
of Rus^ah. Question how long the Round City remained
standing: the siege in the reign of Amin. The Main Wall.
Inundations destroy walls and houses .... 30-46

CHAPTER IV

THE CANALS OF WESTERN BAGHDAD

Ya’khbt and Ibn Serapion. The older Dujayl Canal. The Nahr
'tsil and the Sardt Canal. The Katrabbul and "Bidarkyi districts.

The Trench of THhir. The Karkhiyi Canal and its branches.

The Canal of the Syrian Gate. The Batdtiyi and the channels
of the IJarbiyah Quarter. Comparative sizes of these various
watercourses 47-56

CHAPTER V

THE KCfAH highroad AND THE KARKH SUBURB

Square at Kilfah Gate and various Fiefs. The Old Bridge and
bifurcation of Muhawwal and Kk£ah Roads. Market of Abu- 1 -
Ward: the Ibn Raghbdn and Anb^ite Mosques. Pool ofZalzal.

The Old Hospital and buildings on the *AmM. The Karkh
Suburb and Gate. The story of the Greek Envoy. The Fief of
Rabf. WarthM and Bayiwaii. The Gate of the Coppersmiths ;
the Square of Suwayd and the Tuesday Market . , fp. 57-68

CHAPTER VI

THE CANALS OF KARKH

The Karkhdyi and the Rufayl Canal. The 'ts^ Canal and its
Bridges. The Butchers’ and the Poulterers’ Markets. The
Bazz^n and Dajij Canals, > with the Quarters of the Soap-
boilers and others. The Fief and Canal of Dogs. The Shhnt-
^ ziyah Cemetdiy and its shrines ; the Tilthah Suburb . . pp, 69-So

Contents

XV

CHAPTER VII

THE QUARTERS OF THE LOWER HARBOUR

The Tdbik and Kalliyln Canals. Chickpea Broth. The Monas-
tery of the Virgins. The Street of Kiln-burnt Bricks and the
Cotton House, The Melon House, or Fruit Market, and
the Myrtle Wharf. The Lower Harbour. The Palace of *lsi
and the Ka§r 'tsd Quarter. The later Bridge of Boats. The
Kurayyah Quarter. The Highroad of the Basrah Gate. The
Sharkiyah Quarter and the 'Attoh. The IJarrllnt Archway.

The Palace and Fief of Wadd^h. The Booksellers’ Market and
the New Bridge pp, 8i-93

CHAPTER VIII

THE QUARTER OF THE BASRAH GATE

The Lower Bridge of Boats and the Barley Gate. The Palace of
Humayd. The KutuM Quarter and the Palace of *Adud-ad-Din.

The Tustaiiyin. Later Basrah Gate Quarter. The Shrine of
MaW Karkhi and the Old Monastery of the Sarit Point. The
Convent of the Foxes. The Khuld Palace and the Karir. The
Great *Adud£ Hospital. The Review Ground and the Stables of
the Caliph pp, 94--106

CHAPTER IX

THE SHARi' quarter AND THE TRENCH OF tAHIR

The ShAri* Quarter and Fiefs. The Baghfyfn and BurjulAniyah
Suburbs. The Harbtyah Quarter and the Trench of TAhir. The
Anbdr Gate and Highroad: the Garden of Tdhir. The Iron
Gate. The ^arb Gate. The Katrabbul Cate. The Zubaydtyah
Fief and its Mosque. The Straw Gate. The Zuhayriyah Suburb.

The Bib-as-Saghir. The l^anifah Suburb and the Palace of
‘UmArah. The DurtA Monastery and the Dayr-al-lKibdb. The
Tihirid Palace and its history • pp^ 107-121

xvi

Contents

CHAPTER X

THE HARBIYAH quarter

Road to the Upper Bridge of Boats. The Canal of the Syrian
Gate. The Slaves* House. The Qarb Gate Road and the
Suburb of Abu ‘Awn. The later Harblyah and Its Mosque.

The Quadrangles of Abu-l-'Abbds and Shabtb. The Dujayl
Road. The Persian Quarters of the l^arbiyah. The Abni and
the Dihk^. The Abu-l-Jawn Bridge and the Market of the
Syrian Gate. The three Arcades near the highroad to the Upper
Bridge of Boats. The Syrian Gate^ the Prison, and the Ceme-
tery. The Garden of Kass and the Anbftr Gate Road. The
Quarter of the Lion and the Ram. The Shrine of Ibr^diim-al-
Harbt. The Bukhariot Mosque and the Ramaltyah . 122-135

CHAPTER XI

THE QUARTERS OF THE MUl^WWAL GATE

The Four Markets. The Nasrfyah Quarter. The 'Attiblyah
Quarter; its watered silks and papermakers. The Dir-al>]^z
or the Silk House. The Upper Barley Gate. The ‘Atiktyah
Suburb : the Ipthtabah Road and Suburb. The Palace of ‘Abd-
al-Wahhab and his Suburb. The ‘Abbdsiyah Island. The Patri-
dan’s Mill. The story of the Greek Patrician. The Muhawwal
Road. The Fief of 'Isd and the Muhawwal Gate. The Suburb
of Haylinah. The Suburb of Humayd, son of ^h^abah. Bridges
of the Mills, of China, and of ‘Abbis, leading to the ‘AbbdsJyah
Island. The Bridge of the Greeks and the Fief of the Farrdshes.

The Old Tank. The Bridges on the Great Sardt and Karkhdyd.

The Kundsah and the Market for Beasts of Burden. The
Ydsirtyah Quarter pp, 136-152

CHAPTER XII

BARAthA, MUiHAWWAL, AND THE KA^MAYN

Bardthd and its Mosque : the Old Cemetery and the Gardens of
Ka*ydbah. The Dyers’ Garden. The Muhawwal Township and
the Palace of Mu tasim. The Cemetery of the Martyrs and the
Tomb of Ibn Hanbal. The Cemetery of the Kuraysh and of *
the Straw Gate. The Kdzimayn Shrines and the Buyid Tombs.
Tombs of Zubaydah and the Caliph Amin. Tomb of 'Abd Allah
Ibn |j[anbal pp. 153-167

Contents

xvii

CHAPTER XIII

EASTERN BAGHDAD IN GENERAL

East and West Baghdad and Stoarri. The three northern
quarters of East Baghdad: Rusifah, Shammisiyah, and Mu-
kharrim. The Eastern Palaces and modem Baghdad, The second
Siege : Musta'in and the walls on the western and eastern sides.
Ya*ktlbi and Ibn Serapion : the highroads of the three northern
Quarters, The Canals of the eastern side : from the river Khilis
and from the Nahr Bin. The three Bridges of Boats. The Main
Bridge. The Upper Bridge and Lower Bridge. The Zandaward
Bridge. Executions on the Bridges. Upper Bridge dismantled.
Later Bridge of the Palaces. Numbers of skiffs. Bridge of
Kasr Sibur. The modern Bridge 168-186

CHAPTER XIV
rusAfah

The foundation of Rus&fah. The Mosque and Palace of Mahdi.
'Askar-Mahdi and the Causeway. The Shrine of Abu Hantfah.

The Cemetery of Khayzurdn. The Tombs of the Caliphs. Later
history of the Mosque of Mahdt. The two highroads in RusAfah.

The Straight Road and the Road of the Mayddn. The Khuday-
riyah Quarter and Market. The Upper Bridge of Boats , fp. 187-198

CHAPTER XV
THE SHAMMAsIYAH QUARTER

The great Northern Road. The Road of the Bridge and Shk
Yahyd. The Road of the Mahdi Canal and SClk Ja*far. Palaces
of Ad-Ddr. The Barmecide Fiefs. Sdk Khdlid and the Kasr- *
at-Tin. Ddr Faraj. Dayr Darmdlis and Dayr Samdld. The
Shammdsiyah Gate. Three Gates Quarter. Mdlikiyah Cemetery.

The Shrine of Vows. The Palace of Mdnis, The Baraddn Road
and Bridge.* Barmecide Houses and the Hujamiyah. Ddr-ar-
Rdm: the Christian Quarter. The Dayr-ar-Rdmor the Nestorian
Monastery. The Jacobite Church. Other Christian Monasteries
in West and East Baghdad. Christian Festivals in Baghdad.

The Nestorian Missionary to China. The Market of Nasr and
the Iron Gates. The Palace of Abu-n-Nasr near the Baraddn
Bridge pp* I99“2l6

BAGHDAD

b

xviii Contents

CHAPTER XVI

THE MUKHARRIM QUARTER

The Khur^sin Road and its Markets. The Bdb-at-Tik Gate.

The Mdsi, .Canal and the Mukharrim. The ZMiir Garden, the
Great Road, and the Street of ‘Amr the Greek. The Palace of
Mu'tasim, The Long Street, the Palace of Ibn-al«Furit, and the
Street of the Vine. The Siik-al- Ajsh or Thirst Market. The
Market of Harashi and his Palace. The Ans^r Bridge, the Palace
of Ibn-al-Khasib, and the three Tanks. The Great Pitched Gate.

The Mukharrim Gate and Road : the Canal to the Firdds Palace.

The Haymarket. Palace of Princess Bdnhjah. The Horse
Market and its Gate. The Bib 'Ammir and the Palace of
*Umirah. The two lower Canals at the Triple Divide. The
Mu alii Canal. The Bib Abras and the Gate of the Tuesday
Market. The Canal of the Palaces. The Bib 'Ammah. The
Mushjir Fief 217-230

CHAPTER XVII

THE BUYID PALACES

The Palace of Minis and the Buyid Palaces. The Dyke of
Mu*izz-ad-Dawlah and the Zihir Garden. The Dir-al-Mamlakat
of Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah. The great Dyke and the Kirij Canal. The
Palaces of *Adud-ad-Dawlah. His Garden and the New Canal.
Elephants used in Baghdad. The Dir-as-Saltanah of the Saljiks.
Tughril Beg and his marriage ceremony. Demolition of this
Palace by the Caliph Nisir. The Mosque of the Sultan 231-241

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PALACES OF THE CALIPHS

The Palaces of Western and of Eastern Baghdad. The Palace of
JaTar the Barmecide ; extended by Mamin. 9 asan ibn Sahl and
his daughter Birin. The IJasanl Palace restored to Mu tamid.
The Tij Palace begun ; the Firdis Palace. The Palace of the

Contents

XIX

Pleiades. The Great Mosque of the Palace. The compiJetion
of the Tij. The Shit^btyah Palace. The Dome of the Ass.

The Wild Beast Park and other Palaces. The reception Of the
Greek Envoys from Constantine Porphyrogenitus. The Palace
of the Tiee. The Garden of ^hir. The Peacock Palace. The
Hall of the Wazirs. The burning of the Tij Palace. Building
of the second TSj. The Gardens of the Rakkah . . fp* 242-262

CHAPTER XIX

THE PALACE GATES AND ADJOINING QUARTERS

The Precincts, called the liarfm or yaramayn, and its Wall.

The Quarters of the Mu'alli Canal. The Town Wall. Gates
of the Palace. The B 4 b Gharabah and the B^b S6k-at-Tamr.

The Needlemakers’ Wharf : the Palace of the Cotton Market.

The Palaces of the Princess, DAr Kh^tdn and D^-as-Sayyidah.

The Mustansiilyah College. The Palace Mosque. The Badr
Gate and Palace. The Elephant House. Market of the Per-
fumers. Other Markets round the Square of the Mosque. The
RayMnxyin Palace. The Dargdh-i-Khdt6n and the Libraries.

The Nubian Gate and the Great Cross of the Crusaders. The
Public Gate. Gates of the Palace Suburbs and the Garden
Gate. The Gate of Degprees. General arrangement in the later
Palaces pp. 263-278

CHAPTER XX

THE QUARTERS NORTH OF THE PALACES

The wall of East Baghdad and its four Gates. The BAb-as-
SuMn and the Sultan’s Market. Streets of the Tuesday Market.
Quarters built by Muktadt after the Inundation. The Road of the
two Archways. The Street of the Canal. The iCarAh Ibn Razin
and the Muktadiyah. Mukht&rah Quarter and the Bib Abrax.
College of the Tdjtyah and the Wardiyah Cemetery. The BAb
^^ar and the ?afariyah Quarter. The Quarter of the judge’s
Garden and other quarters called l^arilhi . . pp, ^79^289

b 2

XX

Contents

CHAPTER XXI

THE QUARTERS EAST AND SOUTH OF THE PALACES

The Mamiiniyah Quarter. The Halbah Gate and its Inscription.

The Persian Fief and the Burj-al-*Ajami. The Katiah Quarter
and the Rayyin. The Bib Basaliyah or Gate of Kalwidhi.

The township of Kalwidhi. Palace of the Kalwidhi Rakkah.

The Azaj Gate. Karih Juhayr, the Zandaward Monastery: the
May din and Mas'idah Quarters. The eastern Kurayyah and
the Nizimiyah College. The Bahiiyah and the Tutushi Hospital.

The later Tuesday Market 290-300

CHAPTER XXII

RECAPITULATION AND AUTHORITIES : EARLY PERIOD

Five periods of Abbasid History. The First Period begins.
Tabari and the first siege of Baghdad. Growth of Western and
of Eastern Baghdad. Civil war between Amin and Mamfin.
Baghdad besieged by Tihir and Harthamah. Death of Amin ;
Mamfin in Baghdad. Mu*tasim removes to Simaixi. The
Second Period begins. The second siege of Baghdad under
Musta'in. City walls built. Baghdad again the Capital. Ya'kfibi
and Ibn Serapion. The first systematic description of the city.
Mas'fidi and the history called The Golden Meadows . pp. 301-316

CHAPTER X 3 ^ni

JlECAPITULATION AND AUTHORITIES : MIDDLE PERIOD

The building of the Palaces in East Baghdad. The Third Period
begins. The Buyid Supremacy; their Great Palace: the Dyke
of MuWad-Dawlah and the Hospital of 'Adud-ad-Dawlah. -
Istakhri and Ibn Hawkal. Mu^ddasi. Decline of the Buyids.

The F ourth Period begins. The Saljhks. The History of Baghdad
by Khafib. Area of East and West Baghdad. New Baghdad
and the Wall of Mustazhir: the Saljflk Mosque. The Sieges
of Baghdad in the reigns of Mansilr Rdshid and of Muhammad
Muktafl. Period of decay: the Persian poet Khikdni. Benjamin
ofTudela. Ibnjubayr. Yikht. Many separate walled Quarters.

The Mustansirtyah College and the Rarbl Bridge. Ibn KhallikAn.

tp . 317-339

Contents

XXI

CHAPTER XXIV

RECAPITUIATION AND AUTHORITIES : FINAL PERIOD

The Fall of Baghdad : the Mongol invasion. Persian Histories :
the Tabakdt-i-N 4 siri, Rashid-ad-Din, and Wassdf. Details of
the Mongol siege. Death of the last Caliph Musta'sim. The
Marisid-al-Ittili*. Summary of history of Baghdad since the
Mongol siege. Ibn Batfitah, the Berber. Hamd- Allah, the Persian.

The tomb of *Abd-al-Kidir of GiHn. Modem descriptions of
Baghdad: Tavernier and Niebuhr. The so-called tomb of Zu-
baydah. The Plan of mediaeval Baghdad and of the modem
city. Excavations required to discover the sites of the three
ancient mosques - . fp. 340-356

Index

• 357-381

LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS

No. I . .

No. II .

No. Ill .

No. IV .
No. V .

No. VI .
No. VII ,

No. VIII

Map of Lower Mesopotamia during the Abbasid
Caliphate; with Comparative Plan of Mediaeval
and of Modem Baghdad . . , . fctcep, i

The Round City in the time of the Caliph Man§hr ;
with Enlarged Plan showing the Gates in the con-
centric Walls To fetcep. 15

General Plan of Baghdad during the Earlier Period,
between the years A.H. 150 and 300 . To face p, 47

The Karkh Suburb, south of the Round City . To face p* 57
The IJarbtyah Suburb, north of the Round City; with
the three Northern Quarters of Eastern Baghdad,
Ruslifah, Shammdsiyah, and Mukharrim To face p. 107
The Suburbs of the Mul^wwal Road . . To face p. 136

General Plan of Baghdad during the Later Period,
between the years a. h. 400 and 700 . To facep, 231
Later East Baghdad To face p, 263

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST OF

AUTHORITIES QUOTED IN THE NOTES

Abu-l-Faraj, Gregorius Bar Hebreus : History- Bcyrout. 1890,

Abu-L-FidA : Geography. Arabic text, edited by Reinaud and
De Slane. Paris, 1840.

Chronicle, edited by Reiske. 5 vols., Copenhagen, 1786.

Abu-l-Ma^AsiN: Annals, edited by Juynboll. 2 vols., Leyden, 1855,

Abu ShAmah : KitAb-ar-Rawdatayn. Cairo edition, A. H. 1287 (1 870).

*Ar 1 b: Tabari Continuatus : M. J. De Goeje. Leyden, 1897:

BalAdhur! : Edited by M. J. De Goeje. Leyden, 1886.

Benjamin of Tudela; Itinerary, in Hebrew and English, by
A. Asher. London and Berlin, 1840.

Dozy, R. : Supplement aux Dictionnaires Arabes. 2 vols., Leyden,
1881.

Fakhri: History, Arabic text, edited by Ahlwardt. Gotha, i860.

Frankel, S. : Die Aramaischen Fremdwdrter im Arabischen.
Leyden, 1886.

Goldziher, L: Muhammedanische Studiep. 3 vols., Halle, 1889.
GuzIbah : See next.

H AMD- Allah : TArikh-t-Guztdah (History), in MS., quoted by
sections and reigns of Caliphs.

xxvi Bibliographical List of Authorities

Hamd-Allah ; Nuzhat-al-KulAb (Geography). The section relating
to Baghdad is printed by C. Schefer in his SuppUment du Siasset
Nameh, Paris, 1897. The text of the entire Nuzhat has been
lithographed at Bombay in A.H. 1311 (1894). Excellent MSS.
of both the Guzidah and the Nuzhat will be found in the British
Museum Library and in the Biblioth^que Nationale in Paris.

Hoffmann, G* : AuszUge aus Syrischen Akten Persischer Martyrer.
Leipzig, 1880.

Howorth, Sir H. : History of the Mongols. 4 vols., London, 1888.

I BN BatCtaH : Travels, edited in Arabic with French translation
by C. Defremery. 6 vols., Paris, 1877.

1bn-al-FurAt : MS. in the Vatican Library, No. 726 Arab.^ and cf.
Cat. Cod. Or. BibL Vat. edente Angelo Maio, Rome, 1831, p. 607.

I BN Hawj^l : Edited by M. J. De Goeje. Leyden, 1873.

I BN JtTBAYR : Travels, edited by W. Wright. Leyden, 1852.

I BN KhallikAn : Biographical Dictionary, the Arabic text edited by
F. Wiistenfeld. Gbttingen, 1837. The biographies are given
under consecutive numbers (the pagination not being continuous).
A useful translation, in 4 vols., was made by De Slane for the
Oriental Translation Fund and published in 1871.

IBN Kutaybah : History, edited by F. Wiistenfeld. Gdttingen, 1850.

IBN Masrxjwayh : Edited by M. J. De Goeje in Fragmenta His-
torkarum Arabicorum. Leyden, 1871.

I BN Rusxah ; Edited by M. J, De Goeje. Leyden, 1892,

iB^ Serapion: Ste Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1895,
January, April, and October; ‘ Description of Mesopotamia and
Baghdad,^ edited and translated by Guy le Strange. London,
1895.

iDRisi : Description d’Afrique et de TEspagne, R. Dozy et M. J. De
Jong. Le^^en, 1866.

TmAd-ad-D 1 n: Edited by M, T. Houtsma in Recueil des Textes
relatifs d P Histoire des Seljoucides^ vol. ii. Leyden, 1889.

ISTAKHRl : Edited by M. J. De Goeje. Leyden, 1870.

Biblwgrapktcal List of Authorities xxvii

Jones, Commander Felix : Report : Records of the Bombay
Government, No. XLIII, New Series. Bombay, 1857. This
Report includes a large plan of modem Baghdad and many
maps of the surrounding country.

KazwInI : Athdr-al-BilM, edited by F. Wiistenfeld (vol. ii of the
Cosmography). Gottingen, 1848.

Ker-Porter : Travels. 2 vols., London, 1821.

KhAkAn!: Tuhfat-al-TrA^yn. Ludmow edition; lithographed in
A.H. 1294 (1877).

KhAtib : History of Baghdad. References are to the MS. in the
British Museum, Or. 1 507. Other MSS. of this important Work
— which has never been printed— will be found in both the British
Museum and the French Biblioth^que Nationale.

K1 tAb-al-AghAn 1 : In 20 vols. Cairo, a,h. 1285 (1868).

KitAb-AL-Fihrist : Edited by G. Fliigel. Leipzig, 1871.

KixAB-AL-'UYtN: In Fragmenta Histdricorum Arabic&rumi M. J.
De Goeje. Leyden, 1871.

Kremer, a. von : Kultuigeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen.
2 vols., Vienna, 1875.

MafAtih-al-'UlOm ; Edited by Van Vloten. Leyden, 1895.

MarA^d : The Epitome of YAkht’s great Geographical Dictionary,
called the MarAsid-al-IttilA', edited by T. G. Juynboll. 6 vols.,
Leyden, 1852.

Marco Polo : See Yule.

MAS*tol: The Golden Meadows, edited by Barbier de Meynard,
with French translation. 9 vols., Paris, 1877.

Tanblh. Edited by M. J. De Goeje. Leyden, 1894.

M Award! : Edited by M. Enger. Bonn, 1855.

Mirkhwand : Rawdat»as-SafA ; lithographed in 2 vols., folio. Bom-
bay, A.H. 1266 (1850).

MtTKADDASi: Edited by M. J. De Goeje. Leyden, 1877.
Mushtarik: SeeYAkCit.

Niebuhr, C. : Voyage en Arabic. Amsterdam, 1776 and 17^^*

Nuzhat: See ]^amd-Allah.

xxviii Bibliographical List of Authorities

Parsons, A.: Travels. London, 1808.

RAshid-ad-D 1 n : History of the Mongols. The first volume of the
Persian text, with French translation, was published by E. Quatre-
mere in 1836 ; it has never been completed.

Rawlinson, Sir H, C. : The article on Baghdad in the ninth edition
of the Encyclo^iiedia Britannica.

Sharaf-ad-D 1 n : Histoire de Timur. Traduite par Petis de la Croix.
4 vols., Paris, 1722.

SHArIshI : Commentary on Hariri. Cairo edition, A.H. 1300 (1883).

SUYtyx! : Lubb-al-Lubib, edited by P. J. Veth. Leyden, 1840.

TabakAt-I-NAsir!, by Minhaj-ad-Din. The Persian text was printed
at Calcutta in 1864, and an English translation has been published
by Major H. G. Raverty in the Bibliotheca Indica, 1881.

Tabar! : Chronicle ; published in three parts and in thirteen volumes,
under the editorship of M. J. De Goeje. Leyden, 1890.

TanbIh : See Mas*6di.

Tavernier, J. B. : Les six Voyages de. Utrecht, 1712. i2mo.

Theophanes: Chronographia, edited by C. De Boor. 2 vols.,
Leipzig, 1883.

Van Vloten, G. : Recherches sur la Domination Arabe sous le
Khalifat des Omayades. Amsterdam, 1894.

WassAf: Edited in Persian, with German translation by Hanuner-
Purgstall* Vienna, 1856.

Ya*k<^b 1 : Geography, edited by M. J. De Goeje. Leyden, 1892.

History, edited by M. T. Houtsma. 2 vols., Leyden, 1883.

YAkOt : Geographical Dictionary, called the Mu*jam-al>BuldAn,
edited by F. Wustenfeld. 5 vols,, Leipzig, 1866.

Mushtarik, edited by the same. GSttingen, 1846.

Yule, Col. Henry : Cathay and the Way thither. Hakluyt Society
Publications. 1866.

The Travels of Marco Polo. 2nd edition. 2 vols., London, 1875.

Z. D. M. G. : Zeitschrift der Deutschen MoigenBmdischen GeseUschaft,
vol. x3onx. Leipzig, 1885.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

Yean

A.H. (a.d.)

Abhasid

Caliphs,

Buildings and Events
in Baghdad,

Contemporary

Authorities,

132 (750)

SaffA^.

Builds HAshimtyah,

136 (754)

Manser.

(The First Period.)
Foundation of Bagh-
dad; the Round City.

158 (775)

169 (78s)

MahdI.

HADt.

Completion of Rusifah.

170(786)

HArOn-ar-

RashId.

Ja'fart Palace founded.

193 (809)

AmIn.

First Siege, 197 (813).

198 (813)

MamOn.

Ja'fari Palace com-
pleted, and called the
Hasant.

218 (833)

Mu*tasim.

Palace on Nahr Miisi.
(The Second Period.)
Caliphate removed to
SAmarrIl, 221 (836).

227 (842)

WAthik.

Simarri.

232 (847)

Mutawakkil.

SAmarrd.

247 (861)

Muntasir.

SAmarri*

248 (862)

MUSTA'iN.

Returns to Baghdad.
Second Siege, 251
( 865 ),

251 (866)

Mu'tazz,

SAmarrA.

255 (869)

MuhtadI,

SAmarrA.

256 (870)

Mu*tamid.

BArAn restores the
Hasani Palace. The
Caliph returns to
Baghdad, 279 (892).

Yd^m,

XXX

Chronological Table

Year.

A.H. (A*©,)

Ahhasid

Caliphs,

Buildings and Events
in Baghdad,

CanUmparary

Authorities,

279(893)

289(902)

Mu'tadid.

'AttMUKTAFl.

The Caliph resides in
East Baghdad. Pa-
laces of the Thumyyi
and the Firdiis built.
TheTdj Palace begun.
The Ifasant Palace
enlazged.

TheTij Palacefinished.

Jbn Rustah,

29s (908)

Muktadir.

Mosque of the Caliph
built.

The Palace of the Tree

J'abari, Ibn

320(932)

322 (934)
329(940)

^Ahik.

RApi.

MUTTAKt.

and others. The Greek
Embassy, 305 (917).
The wall of the Round
City falls to ruin.

Palace of the Golden

Serapion,

MaiMt,

333 (944)

334 (946)

Mustakf!.

Mxrpr,

Gaterained, 329 (941).
The Round City inun-
dated.

(The Third Period.)

Isfakhrt,

363 (974)

JkL\

Buyids : Palace of
Mu'izz - ad - Dawlah
and his Dyke. The
Peacock Palace, the
Octagon and Square
Palaces.

The 'Adudi Hospital

Ibn Hawkal^

381 ( 991 )

422 (1031)

IpiDtR.

KJilU,

(The Fourth Period.)

Mukaddasd,

Khaiib,

467 (I 07 S)

Mu^tadI.

Saljte. TughrilBeg
andMdlikShih. The
Nizimiyah College.
The inundation of
466(1074).'

The Mosque of the
Sultan. Suburbs of
the Muktadiyah, &c.

Chronological Table

XXXI

Year,

A.H. (A.D.)

Ahhasid

Caliphs,

Buildings and Events
in Baghdad,

Contemporary

Authorities,

487 (1094)

MUSTAZHIR.

Wall round lower East
Baghdad, 488 (1095).
The RayhAntyin Pa-
lace.

512(1118)

Mustarshid.

The Bkh - al - Hujrah
Palace.

529 (113s)

MANSte

RAshid.

Third Siege, 530(1136).

530(1136)

Muhammad

MuktafI.

The TAj Palace burnt,
549 (i 1 54), and in part
rebuilt Fourth Siege,
551 (1157). Inunda-
tion of 554 (iiS 9 )«

Khdkdnt.

555 (1160)

MUSTANJID.

(The Fifth Period.)

Benjamin of
Tudela,

566(1170)

MtjstadI.

City Wall restored,
568 (1173). Inunda-
tion of 569 (1174).
Older TAj Palace de-
molished. The second
TAj and Dyke built.

575 (1180)

NAsir.

Inundation of 614
(1217). Talism Gate
repaired, 618 (1221).

Ibn Juhayr
Vdhtii,

622 (1225)

ZAhir.

Restores the Bridge of
Boats.

*623 (1226)

MtrSTANSlR,

Mustansiriyah College..
Mosque restored.

640 (1242)

1 Musta'sim.

Libiary of the RayhA-
nt)H[n. Last Siege :
HillAgh, 656 (1258).

IbnKhalHMn.

BAGHDAD

DURING THE CALIPHATE

CHAPTER I

THE FOUNDATION OF BAGHDAD

Previous capitals of Islam. Medina and Kufah. Damascus. The
fall of the Omayyads. Need of a new capital for the Abbasid dynasty.
The two Hdshimiyahs. The Riwandi insurrection. Courses followed
by the Euphrates and Tigris during the Middle Ages. Mansiir chooses
the site of Baghdad. An Assyrian Baghdad ; Etymology of the name.
Az-Zawri and Ar-RawhU. The legend of the name Sd.1:

Baghdad. The advantages of the situation of Baghdad.

The history of Baghdad, as a metropolis, coincides
with the history of the rise and fall of the Abbasid
Caliphs, for in the East it would appear to be almost
a necessity of the case that every new dynasty
should found a new capital. In the earlier annals
of Islam the Era of the Flight (or Hijrah) com-
memorates the date when the Prophet Muhammad,
being forced to leave Mecca, went to take up his
abode in the little hamlet of Yathrib. This change
shifted the political centre of Arabia from the older
commercial city to Yathrib, now to be named
Medina, ‘the City of the Prophet,’ and which, from
a small provincial town, suddenly rose to be the
capital of Islam, becoming in a few years’ time
the seat of the theocratic government that had

B

BAGHDAD

2

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

imposed new laws on the desert tribes and trans-
formed all Arabia into one nation. The first three
successors (the Khallfahs or Caliphs) of the Prophet,
namely his companions Abu Bakr, 'Omar, and '0th-
piin, continued to govern Islam from Medina ; and
among the secondary causes that brought about the
fall of 'Ali, the next Caliph, is certainly to be
counted his ill-advised abandonment of Medina
and the Hijaz. In going to reside at Khfah in
Mesopotamia, 'Ali overset the balance of power
among the Arab tribes, as established by his pre-
decessors ; also he was unable to found a strong
administration in his new capital, discovering when
too late that at Khfah the majority of the popula-
tion was unreliable, ever rebellious and inimical to
his theocratic claims. Mu'iwiyah, who now became
the rival of 'Ali in the Caliphate, had more than
a score of years before this period been named
governor of Syria by the Caliph 'Omar; and, fore-
seeing the struggle from the beginning, had made
it his work to colonize Syria with relatives and
dependants. The knife of a religious fanatic settled
the question of who should be Caliph. 'Ali perished
ht Khfah, inaugurating by his death the long line
of Shi'ah martyrs, and Mu'iwiyah, first Caliph of
the house of Oma 3 ^ah, ruled Islam unquestioned,
residing at Damascus, which thus from the capital
of a province suddenly became the metropolis of
the Commander of the Faithful.

Damascus was well situated to be the seat of
government of the purely Arab Caliphate of the
Omayyads. It lay in a most fruitful land ; well
within striking distance of the Hijiz, where Medina
and Mecca still remained the double centre of

I.] The Foundation of Baghdad 3

religious power in Islam ; further it was backed by
the Arabian Desert, from whence the Caliphs drew
their soldiers, and where such of their kinsmen as
still clung to the nomad life roamed at pleasure,
but close at hand in case of need. Damascus was
also conveniently near the Byzantine frontier, and
during the ninety years of the Omayyad Caliphate
the Arab armies ever and again poured from the
north of Syria into Eastern Asia Minor, making
almost continuous raids against the unfortunate
Christian subjects of the Greek Emperor. Finally,
that Damascus did not stand on a navigable river
was of little disadvantage during the infancy of
Moslem commerce, when all the carrying trade
followed the old caravan-routes over the desert,
and was of such small amount as could still be
borne on the backs of camels.

Of the many causes that led to the overthrow of
the Omayyads, the two most potent factors would
appear to have been the decay of the Arab tribal
system on which the military power of the Damascus
Caliphs depended, and the disaffection towards the
government caused by the continued misrule of the
New-Moslems, who were not Arabs — ^being mainly
the subjects of the old Persian kingdom of the
Chosroes — and who, both in numbers and in intel-
lectual gifts, far surpassed their Bedawin conquerors.
The Persians had accepted Islam cordially, but •dis-
tinctly after a fashion of their own, which the Arab
party regarded as heterodox ; and the Abbasid
claims to the Caliphate were made good, to no in-
considerable extent, by trading op the inborn hatred
which the Persians, already Shi'ahs, nourished against
the Sunni Caliphs at Damascus, who, though lax in

B 2

4 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

morals and given to wine-bibbing, were orthodox in
faith, and, before all things, Arab in sympathy^.

The last Omayyad Caliph, Marwin II, was routed
and slain in the year 132 (a.d. 750), and the first
Abbasid Caliph well merited his name of Saffih —
the ‘ Shedder of Blood ’ — ^he having been constantly
occupied, during the four years of his reign, in
hunting down and putting to death every male
descendant of the house of Omayyah, save one
youth only who, escaping to Spain, ultimately
obtained rule there, and founded the dynasty which
afterwards came to be known as the Caliphate of
Cordova. In 136 (a. d. 754) Manshr succeeded his
brother Saffdh on the throne, and during the twenty-
two years of his reign built Baghdad, and there
organized the government of the Abbasids, which
first established in power, and then suffering a long
decay, was destined to last for five centuries seated
on the banks of the Tigris.

A new capital for the new dynasty was indeed
an imperative need. Damascus, peopled by the
dependants of the Omayyads, was out of the ques-
tion ; on the one hand it was too far from Persia,
whence the power of the Abbasids was chiefly
derived; on the other hand it was dangerously
near the Greek frontier, and from here, during
the troublous reigns of the last Oma3ryads, hostile
incursions on the part of the Christians had beg^n
to avenge former defeats. It was also beginning
to be evident that the conquests of Islam would,

^ The causes which led to the overthrow of the Omayyads, and the
revolution of which the house of ‘Abbis skilfully profited to obtain the
Caliphate, are discussed in a recent pamphlet (named in the List of
Authorities) by the Dutch orientalist, G. Van Vloten.

I.] The Foundation of Baghdad 5

in the future, lie to the eastward towards Central
Asia, rather than to the westward at the further
expense of the Byzantines. Damascus, on the high-
land of Syria, lay, so to speak, dominating the
Mediterranean and looking westward, but the new
capital that was to supplant it must face east, be
near Persia, and for the needs of commerce have
water communication with the sea. Hence every-
thing pointed to a site on either the Euphrates or
the Tigris, and the Abbasids were not slow to make
their choice.

During the first Moslem conquest of Mesopotamia,
two Arab cities had been founded there for the
garrisoning of the troops — Basrah near the mouth
of the twin rivers, and Kfifah on the Euphrates,
where the desert caravan-road, from the Hijiz to
Persia, entered the cultivated plain of Mesopotamia.
The Caliph Saffih, when not occupied in fighting
and butchering, had lived at the Palace called
Hdshimi)^h (after the ancestor of his race), which
he had built beside the old Persian city of Anb4r
on the eastern side of the Euphrates, near to where
the great canal, afterwards known as the Nahr'lsi,
branched off towards the Tigris. At this HAshimiyah
(of Anbir) the first Abbasid Caliph died in 136
(a.d. 754); and his brother MansCiir, shortly after
succeeding to the throne, began to build for him-
self another residence called by the same name.
This second Hishimiyah, according to one account,
was a town standing between the Arab garrison-city
of Kfifah and the old Persian town of Idirah ; that
is to say, on the Arabian side of the Euphrates, not
far above the place where that river, in the tenth
century a.d., spread out and became lost in the

6

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Great Swamp. Another account places the later
Hishimlyah of Manshr near the town (Madlnah)
of Ibn Hubayrah, which last lay close by Khfah,
and therefore must not be confounded with the
Castle (Kasr) of Ibn Hubayrah, a town of some
importance lying higher up the Euphrates than
Khfah, and on its left or eastern bank^

The exact position, however, of this town of
Hdshimiyah is of little importance, since Manshr
very soon abandoned the site as most inconvenient
for a capital It was too near Khfah, with its popu-
lation of fanatical Shi'ahs, and its garrison of Arab
tribesmen, who constantly rioted and otherwise
gave trouble. Lastly, Manshr took a permanent
dislike to Hishimlyah after the insurrection of the
Riwandls, when a multitude of these Persian
fanatics surging round his palace had insisted on
worshipping him as the Deity. The indignant
Caliph had repudiated their idolatrous homage,
whereupon they began a riot, attacking the guards,
and Manshr at last found himself in some danger
of losing his life at the hands of those who had
pretended to revere him as their God.

If the capital of Islam was to be shifted to

^ Ya*kubi, 237 ; Tabari, iii. 271. This duplication of place-names,
in the immediate neighbourhood one of the other, is one of the
difficulties of mediaeval Arab geography. Dictionaries of homonyms
exist —as, for instance, that of Yakut called Al-Mmhtarik — and they
are useful, though seldom affording sufficient information about places
of minor importance. That there was a Hishimiyah at Anbir, as
well as at Kufah, is evident by the comparison of two such good
authorities as the Kitdb-al~ Uyiin^ pp. 21 1, 214, 236, with the passages
in Tabari and Ya'kubi cited above. It is also evident from the passage
in Tabari that the Madinah, or ‘town,’ of Ibn Hubayrah close to
Kufah, was not identical with his JKasr, or ‘ Castle,* a place which,
however, afterwards rose to be a town of some importance standing
on the high road from Baghdad to Kilfah.

I.] The Foundation of Baghdad 7

Mesopotamia, the advantages of a site on the
Tigris, rather than on the Euphrates, were con-
spicuous. The new capital would then stand in
the centre of a fruitful country, and not on the
desert border, as was the case with Khfah and
the neighbouring towns, for the barren sands of
Arabia come right up to the western bank of the
Euphrates. By a system of canals the waters of
this latter river were used to thoroughly irrigate
and fertilize all the country lying in between the
two great streams, while the waters of the Tigris
were kept in reserve for the lands on its left or
Persian bank ; and thus the whole breadth of the
province, from the Arabian Desert on the one side
to the mountains of KurdistAn on the other, was to
be brought under cultivation, and converted into
a veritable garden of plenty. Lastly, the Lower
Tigris before its junction with the Euphrates was
more practicable for navigation than this latter
river, inasmuch as the great irrigation canals, by
effecting the drainage of the surplus waters of the
Euphrates into the Tigris, scoured the lower course
of this river, and kept the water-way clear through
the dangerous shallows of the Great Swamp imme-
diately above the Basrah Estuary.

To understand the problem as presented to
Manshr in his search after a suitable place for the
new capital, it must also be borrie in mind that
during the period of the Abbasids, neither the
Euphrates nor the Tigris followed the course
marked on our modern maps. From the account
given by I bn Serapion, it is evident that the main
stream of the Euphrates, at a short distance above
the ruins of Babylon, took the right or western

8

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

channel, and, very soon after passing Khfah, dis-
charged its waters into the Great Swamp, which
is so important a feature in the political and
physical geography of that day. The Tigris, on
the other hand, when it reached the latitude of
the present Kilt-al- Amdrah (about a hundred miles
as the crow flies below Baghdad) turned due south,
and passing down to Wdsit by the channel now
known as the Shatt-al-Hayy, shortly below this city,
also entered the Great Swamp where, however,
unlike the Euphrates, its course continued to be
marked by a series of navigable lagoons, called
Hawr. Finally the whole- body of water collected
in the Swamp, from both the great rivers, drained
into a channel leading out immediately to the head
of the tidal estuary, which, after passing Basrah,
flowed into the Persian Gulf at'Abbaddn^.

’ At the present day the Tigris, below Kut-al-*Am 5 .rah, instead of
flowing down past Wisit, turns into the more easterly channel, and
after making a great bend due east, takes its course south to Kumah,
where it joins the waters of the Euphrates to form the estuary of the
Shatt-al-‘Arab. It is still a question when this change of bed took
place, for no direct evidence of the date is to hand ; but the change
doubtless was effected gradually, and probably during the course of
the sixteenth century A. D. The western bed, going through Wisit,
certainly continued to be full of water as late as the middle of the
fifteenth century A. r>. It is' plainly thus described by all our Arabic
and Persian authorities of the Middle Ages, to mention only the latest
in date, by Hamd Allah Mastawfi in A.D. 1330, by *Ali Yazdi, the
historian of the campaigns of Timur, who took Wisit, * on the Tigris,'
in A. D. 1393, and by H^fiz Abru, who wrote about the year A.D, 1420.
After this must have come the change, and our next authority, more
than two centuries, however, later, is the Frenchman Tavernier.
After visiting Baghdad in February, 1652, he describes his journey
down the Tigris, which (he says) some distance below the city, divided
into two branches, so as to enclose a great island that was traversed
by numerous small canals. The western channel (the older course by
Wfisit) apparently was then already no longer navigable, and Tavernier
did not travel by it, but describes the river here as running ^ vers la

I.] The Foundation of Baghdad g

Manstlr made many journeys in search of a site
for his new capital, travelling slowly up the banks
of the Tigris from Jarjariy^L to Mosul. A site near
BSrimmi below Mosul was at first proposed, where
the hills called Jabal Hamrln are cut through by
the Tigris, but the Caliph finally decided against
this, it is said because of the dearness and the
scarcity of provisions. The Persian hamlet of
Baghdad, on the western bank of the Tigris, and
just above where the Sarit canal flowed in, was
ultimately fixed upon, and in the year 145 (a.d. 762)
Manshr began to lay the foundations of his new city.

From the discovery made by Sir Henry Raw-
linson in 1848, during the low water in an unusually
dry season, of an extensive facing in Babylonian
brickwork, which still lines the western bank of the
Tigris at Baghdad, it would appear certain that
this place had already been occupied by a far more
ancient city. The bricks are each stamped with the
name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar, and it has since
been found that in the Assyrian geographical cata-
logues of the reign of Sardanapalus a name very

pointe de la Mdsopotamie/ The French traveller went by boat down
the eastern (the present) channel, which took its course * le long de
Tancienne Chaldde/ He was ten days going from Baghdad to Ba§rah,
and after passing (Kut-al-) *Amirat, a clay-built fort, he mentions the
villages of Satarat, Mansiiri, Magar, and Gazar, when he reached
Gomo (Kurnah) ‘where the Euphrates and Tigris come together.*
(Tavernier, i. 240.) It is evident, therefore, that the Tigris has followed
its present course from Kfit-al-'Amirah to Kurnah since the middle of
the seventeenth century, some time before which, but after 1420, it
began to change over from the Wdsit channel that it had occupied
during the Middle Ages. It is curious further to notice that this
present eastern course, running from *Am 4 rah to Kurnah, is also the
channel taken by the Tigris in pre-Islamic days, namely during
the Sassanian period ; as has been already pointed out in a note to
my translation of Ibn Serapion iJ,R,A.S., 1895, p. 301).

lo Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

like Baghdad occurs, which probably refers to the
town then standing on the site afterwards occupied
by the capital of the Caliphs.

Be this as it may, the name of Baghdad in its more
modem form is presumably Persian, for which Yikht
and other Arab authorities give various fanciful
etymologies. B&gh in Persian means ‘ garden,’ and
the city, they say, had the name of the garden of a
certain Dad or DMwayh ; or else Bagh was the name
of an idol, and d&d, meaning ‘given’ or ‘ gift, ’the name
of the town would thus have signified ‘ the gift of
the idol Bagh’ — for the which reason, some pious
Moslems add, its name was changed by the Caliph
Manshr to Madlnat-as-Salim, ‘ the City of Peace.’
This last was more especially the official name for
the capital of the Caliphate, and as such Madlnat-
as-Saldm appears as a mint-city on the coins of the
Abbasids. In common parlance, however, the older
name, Baghdad, maintained its supremacy, and the
geographical dictionaries mention several variations
in the spelling, doubtless Persian or archaic forms,
viz. Baghdidh and Baghddn, also Maghddd, Magh-
didh, and Maghd^in. From an elegy quoted by
Tabari on the ruin which Baghdad had suffered
during the great siege in the reign of the Caliph
Amin, it would seem that the pronunciation Bagh-
deldh was then held to represent what had been the
name of this town in the Persian or infidel days, as
against Baghdad of the Moslems. The poem in
question closes with these two lines : —

‘ And, in this present state of affairs, it will be well indeed,

If (Moslem) Baghdad do not shortly relapse and again become
(Infidel) Baghdidh !*

The true etymology, however, of the name would

II

I.] The Foundation of Baghdad

appear to be from the two ancient Persfh^/Word^-j
Bagh, ‘ God,’ and Dddk, meaning ‘ founied^e^^
‘foundation’ — whence Baghdad would have signified
the city ‘ Founded by God.’

The western half of Baghdad in Moslem days
was also known by the name of Az-ZawrS., meaning
‘ the Bent ’ or ‘ the Crooked,’ in allusion, it is said,
to the Kiblah-point (or direction towards Mecca) not
precisely coinciding here with any one of the cardinal
points of the compass. Another explanation given
is that Baghdad took the name Az-Zawr& from the
river Tigris, which was ‘bent’ as it passed by
the city : while Eastern Baghdad is said to have
received the name of Ar-Rawh&, ‘the Widespreading,’
or ‘ the Shallow,’ from its position in a curve of the
stream; and Mas'tidi in mentioning these names
adds that both Az-Zawr4 and Ar-RawhS, were in
common use among the people in his day. It is to
be remarked that the grammatical form of both
these names is Arabic, but the explanation given
for the use of the terms is in neither case very
plausible; it is therefore noteworthy that Hamd-
Allah the Persian geographer, writing in the eighth
century (a. d. the fourteenth), states that while the
Arabs always spoke of Baghdad as Madlnat-as-
Salim, ‘the City of Peace,’ it was in preference
named ZawrA by the Persians, which almost looks
as though this Arabic word Zawrd, ‘ Crooked,’ may
have stood for some more ancient Iranian name,
now long forgotten^.

1 Tanbih, 360 ; Nuzhat, 146 ; Tabari, iii. 273 ; Yakut, i. 677. 678 ;
Rawlinson, Encycl. Brit., s.v. Baghdad. The verse quoted will be
found in Tabari, iii. 872 ; and this reference I owe to Professor
A. A. Bevan.

12 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

During the last period of the Sassanian dynasty,
Persian Baghdad, on the western side of the Tigris,
had been a thriving place, and at the period of the
Moslem Conquest a monthly market was held here.
It became famous in the early annals of Islam for
the very successful raid of which it was the scene.
During the Caliphate of Abu Bakr, Khilid the
general of the Arab army, after advancing some
way into Mesopotamia, suddenly dispatched a body
of troops against this Stik Baghdad, as the ‘ Market ’
held at the Sar^Lt Point was then called ; the raiders
surprised the town ‘and the Moslems filled their
hands with gold and silver, obtaining also the where-
witlial to carry away their booty,’ for they promptly
returned again to Anbdr on the Euphrates, where
Khilid lay encamped.

After this incident of the year 13 (a.d. 634)
Baghdad appears no more in history until Mansfir,
seeking out a site for the new capital, encamped
here in the year 145 (a.d. 762). We are told that
the spot was then occupied by several monasteries
{Dayr), chiefly of Nestorian monks, and from them
Mansfir learned that among all the Tigris lands this
district especially was celebrated for its freedom,
from the plague of mosquitoes, the nights here being
cool and pleasant even in the height of summer.
These lesser advantages, doubtless, had no incon-
siderable influence with Mansfir in the final choice
of this as tlie place for the new capital of the
Abbasids in Mesopotamia; but the practical fore-
sight shown by the Caliph has been amply confirmed
by the subsequent history of Baghdad. This city,
called into existence as by an enchanter’s wand, was
second only to Constantinople in size during the

I.] The Foundation of Baghdad 13

Middle Ages, and was unrivalled for splendour
throughout Western Asia, becoming at once, and
remaining for all subsequent centuries, the capital
of Mesopotamia, Wars, sieges, the removal for a
time by the Caliphs of the seat of government to
Simarrd^ (higher up the Tigris), even the almost
entire destruction of the city by the Mongols in
A,D. 1258, none of these have permanently affected
the supremacy of Baghdad as capital of the Tigris
and Euphrates country, and now, after the lapse
of over eleven centuries, the Turkish governor of
Mesopotamia still resides in the city founded by the
Caliph Manshr.

It is related by the historian Tabari that a pro-
phecy was found in the ancient books of the
Christian monks, foretelling of a great city to be
built in course of time between the $arS.t Canal
and the Tigris, by one bearing the name of Miklis.
The Caliph Manshr hearing of this prophecy greatly
encouraged his people by telling them that this
very name had been given him as a boy by his
nurse. The real Miklis had been a celebrated
robber of that day, and the young prince had
earned this nickname for himself by stealing on one

^ This city had already been a flourishing place under the Sassanian
kings, and in Aramaean or Syriac the name was written Sdmarrd. It
became the capital of the Abbasids under Mu ta?im, and from the
year 221 to 279 (a. d. 836 to 892) seven Caliphs resided here, the name
of the place being then (officially) changed to Surra-man-rda, meaning
^ Who sees it, rejoices.’ Under this form the name appears as a mint-
city on the coins of the Abbasids, beginning with the Caliph Mu*ta§im.
Six ways of pronouncing the name are cited by Ibn KhallMn, and
Yil^ut quotes a variety of fanciful etymologies, giving, however, the
pronunciation Simarri at the head of the article in his Geographical
Dictionary. In Tabari, and the earlier authorities, the name is always
spelt Surra-man-ria, but this form appears only to have been used
officially. Yakut, iii. 14 ; Hoffmann, 188 ; Ibn Khallikan, No. 8, p, 15.

14

Baghdad during the Caliphate

occasion his nurse’s distaff and selling the thread
from it to provide a banquet, all his companions
having been invited to do honour to the collation.

The manifold advantages of the position of
Baghdad are a theme on which Moslem geogra-
phers and historians fondly expatiate. Mukaddasi,
for instance, states that the Caliph took the advice
of those who had had experience from living here
both in summer and in winter, and all agreed in
its praise, that geographer summing up in the
following terms said to have been addressed to
MansAr: ‘We are of opinion that thou shouldst
found the city here between the four districts of
Bhk and KalwS.dhd, on the eastern bank, and
of Katrabbul and Bdduriyd, on the western bank:
thereby shalt thou live among palms and near
water, so that if one district fail thee in its crops
or be late in its harvest in another will the remedy
be found. Also thy city being on the Sarit Canal,
provisions will be brought thither by the boats of
the Euphrates, and by the caravans through the
plains, even from Egypt and Syria. Hither, up
from the sea, will come the wares of China, while
down the Tigris from Mosul will be brought goods
from the Byzantine lands. Thus shall thy city be
safe standing between all these streams, and thine
enemy shall not reach thee, except jt be by a boat
or by a bridge, and across the Tigris or the
Euphrates

‘ Baladhuri, 246; Tabari, iii. 274, 276; Mukaddasi, 119. The
Milcli? story is also pven, with amplifications, in Yakut, i. 68; and
another summary of the advantages of the site will be found in
Tabari, iii. 273, the speech in this account being put in the mouth
of the §ihib, or Lord of the District, of Baghdad.

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11. The Old Bridge. Orphan School.

12. The New Bridge. 29. Dukkan-al-Abna (the Persian Shops).

13. Palace and Mosque of Waddah. 3®. Quadrangle of the Persians.

14. The Harrant Archway. * 3i- Quadrangle of Shabtb.

15. The Mosque of the Sharklyah Quarter.

CHAPTER II

THE CITY OF MANSI&R

The foundation of the Round City. Shfah insurrection: delays.
No traces of the Round City now extant. Plan marked out in cinders ;
Abu Hantfah. The Four Gates. Measurements. The Central Area,
and the Palace of the Golden Gate. The Concentric Walls. Bricks
used. The origin of the Gates. Description of thoroughfare going
from outer Gate to Central Area. The original Markets and Arcades.
The Prison, and the Central Area. The Water-conduits.

The Round City iii Western Baghdad which, as
already said, was founded by Manshr in the year
145 (a. D. 762), formed the nucleus of the great
metropolis which afterwards, radiating from this
centre, spread itself over both banks of the Tigris.
This burgh, generally referred to as Madlnat-al-
MansAr or the City of MansAr, was built with a
double wall and four gates, it was exactly circular
in outline, and stood close to the right bank of the
river, at the angle formed by the inflowing of the
Sarit Canal, Hardly, however, had Manshr begun
to lay out the plan of his new city, when the work
was stopped by reason of a Shl'ah rebellion in the
Hijiz. A certain Muhammad, grandson of the
Caliph yasan, son of ‘All, rose in arms, at Medina,
asserting the rights of his house to the Caliphate.
He was before long defeated and slain by yumayd

i6 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

ibn Kahtabah and 'ls& ibn MAsi, a nephew of
Mansiir, who had been sent against him with an
army. Then his brother Ibrahim once more raised
the standard of the Alids in Basrah, and imme-
diately marched on Khfah, where 'isi, the nephew
of the Caliph, opposing him with his victorious
troops from the HijAz, this Ibrahim, too, was ulti-
mately slain. Manshr, who had himself meanwhile
crossed Mesopotamia to Khfah, and superintended
the dispatch of the troops, now returned to Baghdad,
where his nephew 'Isd and Idumayd, the son of
Kahtabah, now joining him, they were both re-
warded by a grant of fiefs in the new city as will
be more particularly described in a later chapter.

It was, however, not until the year 146 (a.d. 763)
that the buildings at Baghdad were sufficiently
advanced to enable the Caliph to remove the
Treasury and Public Offices (Diwins) from Kifah,
where they had been temporarily established, to
his new capital. No further mishap occurring, the
constructions were now rapidly pushed on, 100,000
craftsmen being constantly employed on the works,
and by the year 149 (a.d. 766) the new burgh, the
Round City of Manstlr, was finished

Of this Round City, apparently, no traces now
exist ; but the reason is not far to seek when it is
remembered that the country where Baghdad stands
being entirely wanting in stone quarries, the walls
and houses were for the most part constructed of

^ Ibn Kutaybah, 192. The following description of the Round City
is derived mainly from Ya'kubi, who wrote about 130 years after the
date of its foundation and when most of it was still standing. The
historian Tabari, who wrote some twenty years after Ya*kubi, has
given a detailed account in his Annals of the circumstances connected
with the foundation of Baghdad.

n.] The City of Mansur 17

those sun-dried mud bricks, which, with the lapse
of centuries, are inevitably converted back into the
clay from which they were originally moulded.
Kiln-burnt bricks and tiles were indeed used to
some extent, especially for facing the buildings, and
fragments of these might still be found, marking
the sites of ancient mosque§^and palaces, if suitable
excavations could be made.

It is said that Manstir caused workmen to be
brought together from Syria and Mosul, from Persia
and from Babylonia, as also architects aild land-
surveyors; and over the craftsmen he appointed
four chief overseers, one of these being the Imdm
Abu Idanlfah, well known as the founder of the
Idanifites, the earliest of the four schools of orthodox
Sunni theology. He is said to have been the first
Moslem to discard the older method of counting the
bricks prepared for building, and in its stead he
measured the stacks with a graduated rod and then
computed their number. The plan of the city was
first traced out on the ground with lines of cinders,
and, to mark it the better, all along the outline
they set balls of cotton saturated with naphtha and
then set these on fire. On the lines thus marked
were dug the foundations of the double walls, with
a deep ditch outside, filled with water, and a third
innermost wall round the central area, the whole
thus forming concentric circles, four equidistant gate-
ways being left- in each of the circuits of the walls.
Of these gates two, the Kfifah Gate (SW.) and the
Ba§rah Gate (SE.), both opened on the §ar4t
Canal; the Khur^LsSin Gate (NE.) was on the
Tigris, leading to the Main Bridge of Boats, while
the Syrian Gate (NW.) led to the highroad of

BAGHDAD C

i8 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Anbir, which came down along the northern or left
bank of the upper §arit Canal. As the Moslem
writers remark, the main feature of the City of
Manshr was that it was circular, with four equi-
distant gates, and this was a novelty in Islam,
probably derived from Persia. Externally from gate
to gate measured 5,000 ells, or about 2,500 yards,
and this gives us a diameter for the outer circle
round the ditch of nearly 3,200 yards

In the centre of the city was a great circular area,
at first only partially occupied by palaces and the
mosque, but which in time came to be built over
like the rest of Baghdad, and this area, which
measured about 2,000 yards (over a mile) across,
was enclosed by the innermost circular wall with
its four gateways K In the centre of this area stood

* Baladhuri, 295 ; Tabari, iii. 276, 277 ; Ya'kubi, 238. The ell used
was the H^shimite or Black Ell, which may be roughly estimated at
half a yard. The measurement given above is from Ya'kubi, 238.
Other and later authorities vary considerably. Thus Yakut, i. 683,
tsays that from gate to gate measured an Arab mile, i.e. 4,000 ells or
2,000 yards, which agrees fairly well with Ya'kubi. On the other hand,
Khatib (folio 65 b) states that the Caliph Mu'tadid, who reigned from
279 to 289 (892 to 902 A.D.), used to point out the limits of the old city
as covering an area two Arab miles across in every direction. Khatib
also cites (folio 68 b) another tradition, namely, that while from
the Khurisin Gate to that of Khfah measured 800 ells (400 yards),
from the Syrian Gate to that of Basrah measured only 600 ells
(300 yards). This tradition, however, appears to be untrustworthy,
as it is supported by no other known authority, and would make the
city oval, while all other accounts agree that it was circular in plan ;
Khatib himself later on implying this, when (folio 69 b) he asserts that
. the diameter of the city only measured 2,200 ells, that is 1,100 yards,
though this last must certainly be an under estimate.

® There is an apparent confusion in the descriptions of the Round
City, which speak of two walls and describe three. This is because
the inner wall, round the central area, which was not a rampart, is not
counted as a town wall. The double walls are the two outer ramparts,

• and these for clearness are in the following pages designated the outer

n.] The City of Mansur 19

the Palace of the Caliph (called the Golden Gate),
and beside it the Great Mosque; while from the
four gates of the inner wall round the central area
the four highroads led out, radiating like the spokes
of a wheel, each in turn passing through the gate-
ways in the double walls, and finally crossing the
ditch. Apparently the gateways in the two outer
walls had each double gates, for it is stated that
from the outermost city gateway to the gateway
leading into the central area there were in all five
gates to pass. This system of concentric circular
walls with a central palace was, as already said,
an innovation in the plan of a Moslem city, first
introduced by Man§hr, who declared that the
sovereign should thus live in the centre of all and
equidistant from all.

The walls of Baghdad were built with sun-dried
bricks of extraordinary size. It is stated that some
bricks were cubical, and measured an ell (i8 inches)
every way, and these weighed 200 ratls or pound
weights. Others were half bricks, shaped square
(somewhat like the Roman bricks), being 9 inches
thick, with the surface measuring 18 inches by the
like, and these were of the weight of 100 ratls.
That these weights, as reported by tradition, are not
fictitious, but substantially correct, is shown by the
fact that when part of the wall built by Mans hr was
afterwards demolished, an ancient brick was found
on which was written in red paint, ‘weight 117
ratls,’ and the trial then made proved that this
was exact. We are told furtlier that the courses
of bricks in the city walls were not bonded together

and the main wall. The inner wall was merely a partition to enclose
the area of the palace and mosque.

20

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

with wooden beams (as would seem to have been the
common usage among the Arabs), but with bundles
of reeds: and it is stated that 162,000 bricks were
set in each course. Of the double walls the inner
was the higher, and sufficiently broad to be of the
nature of a rampart According to one account
this, the main wall, was 90 feet high, and at its
foundations measured 105 feet across (another ac-
count giving the lower width at 90 ells, or 135 feet,
but this appears to be a clerical error), while at the
summit it narrowed to 37^ feet. The outer wall
was, by all accounts, less massive in its construction,
and apparently it is this wall whose dimensions are
given by Xabari as 75 feet across at the foundations,
narrowing to 30 feet at the summit, with a height
that may be set down at about 60 feet^.

The doors of the four gateways in the main wall
were of iron, and some curious details as to their
origin are given us by Xabarl. It is said that King
Solomon, the son of David, had founded a city in
lower Mesopotamia called Zandaward; and near
this ancient town, in the days of the Omayyad
Caliphs, PJajj^lj, their great viceroy in Trik, had
built the Moslem city of Wisit. Now by command
of King Solomon the Shay^ns of old had made
five iron g^tes for Zandaward, and these, being
such as no living man could have made, yajjij took
from the old city, already then a ruin, and set them up

^ Khatib (folio 69b) gives other dimensions for the main wall:
namely, height 35 ells (or 52 J feet), and width below 20 ells (or 30 feet).
Yalcubi, however, is the better authority, and his figures are those
given above. To avoid needless repetition in the following pages,
measurements in the Arab ell (D^ird^) are given in feet or yards, at
the rate of two ells to three feet, which is a sufficiently exact estimate
for all practical purposes.

11 .]

The City of Mansur

21

in the gateways of WcLsit. This was about the year
84 (703 A.D.), and half a century later Man§hr ordered
these famous gates to be carried away from Wdsi^,
bringing them up the Tigris to adorn the rising walls of
Baghdad. Tabari states that in his day (say 300 A.H.)
the five gates of Solomon were still to be seen, but
what their subsequent fate was is nowhere recorded.
Four out of the five closed the four gateways of
the main wall of Baghdad, and the fifth was the
gate of the Palace of Mansfir in the central area. In
the outer wall the four ^tes were of diverse origin :
the Khurisdn Gate which had been brought from
Syria, was said to be of Pharaonic workmanship;
the Kfifah Gate had been made in that city by a
certain Khilid, son of 'Abd- Allah, a Moslem crafts-
man; the Syrian Gate, recognized as being the
weakest of the four, was constructed in Baghdad
by order of Mansfir ; lastly, where the Ba§rah Gate
came from is not known

Any one entering the City of Mansfir would, after
crossing the ditch which encircled the outer wall,
pass in by one of these four gates, from each of which
a thoroughfare led directly to the great central area.
The ditch was kept filled with water brought by
underground conduits from the Karkhdyi Canal,
which w'ill be described later, and on the inner side
of the ditch rose an embankment or dyke, leading
in quarter-circles from g^te to gate round the city,
this dyke having its sides lined with kiln-burnt
bricks, carefully cemented.

’ Khatib, folios 68 b, 69 b; Ibn Serapion, 50, note 4; Tabari, iii.
277) 278, 33i> 332 ; Ya'kubi, 238, 339 ; idem, ii. 449 ; Marasid,
i. 454. Zandaward was also the name of a Nestonan monastery in
East Baghdad, as will be seen later.

22

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Above the dyke and the ditch rose the outer wall,
crowned with battlements described as ‘circular,’
and this wall was flanked by bastions. Between the
K<ifah Gate and that of Basrah there were twenty-
nine bastions, while between each of the other gates
there were only twenty-eight, which reckoned out
would give a bastion for about every sixty yards
of wall length.

It is to be noted that the four thoroughfares
leading respectively from each of the outer gates
to the central area were all exactly alike, and hence
the following description will apply indifferently to
the K'&fah roadway, or that entering by the Basrah,
the Khurisin, or the Syrian Gate.

Each of the four gateways of the outer wall was
surmounted by a great gatehouse, the hall or
passage-way of which was flanked by porticoes,
both hall and porticoes being vaulted with burnt
bricks set in mortar. The hall of the gatehouse
measured 120 feet in length, and it therefore must
have traversed not only the outer wall, which, as
already said, was 75 feet in width at base, but also
have extended over the dyke and part of the culvert
crossing the ditch ^ Passing in through this hall
and thus traversing the outer defences, the thorough-
fare from the gatehouse led to a small square, paved
with flagstones, and enclosed by walls 30 yards long
by 20- yards broad, occupying the space between
the gatehouses respectively of the outer and the
main wall. For purposes of defence, the ground,
measuring 50 yards across, was left unoccupied

^ Khatib, folio 70a, gives the dimensions of the gate-hall as only
30 ells by 20 (45 feet by 30); possibly this was the size of an outer
portico.

II.] The City of Mansur 23

between the two outer city walls, this forming a
circular ring in four quadrants, and making a con-
venient roadway from gate to gate immediately
within the outer line of defence, each quadrant of
the ring being reached at either end from the paved
squares within the outer city gates.

On the inner side of each paved square, afore-
said, rose the gatehouse of the main wall, surmounted
by a great dome or cupola, with a portico before
the gateway. The iron doors closing these four
gateways have already been described, and it is
reported that each of these was so ponderous that
it took a company of men to open or to shut it;
while the gateway was so lofty that, as Ya'ls:fibi
writes, ‘ a horseman with his banner, or a spearman
with his lance, could enter the same freely and
without lowering the banner or couching the lance.’
The main wall, as already stated, was a great
rampart of sun-burnt bricks, 90 feet high and 124
3'’ards broad along the top, one account adding that
it was surmounted by battlements and little turrets,
these last being each 7^ feet high. The upper
level of the main wall could be reached from each
of the four gatehouses by a gangway, probably
rising in gradients, for it is said that a horseman
could ride up, and this gangway was carried over
the vaultings which formed the roof of the portico
in front of the gatehouse. Within, the portico was
occupied by the horse and foot-guards of the Caliph,
and the vaulted roof is described as of unequal
height, part being constructed of great unburnt bricks
and part of burnt brick set in mortar, the gangway
(already mentioned) rising over the various levels of
the vaultings to the summit of the wall, from whence

24

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

the cupola crowning the gatehouse was reached.
The various passages were all closed off by doors,
and the top story of each gatehouse in the main
wall was occupied by an upper chamber (Majlis)
overlooking the city, that above the Khurdsin Gate,
especially, having been a favourite resting-place of
the Caliph Mansiir. Mas' lid! relates an anecdote of
how an arrow, bearing a warning, was shot up and
fell at the feet of the Caliph as he was once seated
here, and the historian takes occasion to remark
that this Gate of Khurisin was in old days often
called Bib-ad-Dawlah, the Gate of Good Fortune
or the Gate of the Dynasty, because the Dynasty
(DawlaJi) or Good Fortune of the Abbasids had
come to them out of Khurisin.

The cupola over the upper chamber of each gate-
house was supported on columns of teak wood ; it
was green in colour outside, being probably covered
with tiles, and within the ceiling was wrought in
gold work, vaulted, the interior height being 75 feet
above its flooring. Crowning the cupola was a
figure which served as a wind-vane, ‘the equal of
which was not elsewhere to be seen.’ Lastly, it is
stated that the hall below the cupola of each gateway
in the main wall was 18 feet broad and 30 feet long,
and this hall apparently occupied part of the thick-
ness of the wall.

Between the main wall and the third or inner wall
enclosing the central area was another broad circular
ring of ground, which (like the outer ring already
described) was of course divided into four quadrants
by the thoroughfares from the gates. Summing up
the measurements given by Khatlb, it would appear
that its width from the main wall to the inner wall

II.] The City of Manstlr 25

must have been somewhat less than 150 yards
across, while each of its four quadrants measured
in length about a mile from gate to gate. Unlike
the outer ring {which was vacant), these quadrants
were occupied by houses forming streets and lanes,
and though the space between the main and inner
walls was somewhat narrow, the total area of the
four quadrants was not inconsiderable, amounting
to over a third of a square mile in the aggregate.

The thoroughfare between the gates of the main
and the inner wall began and ended respectively in
an outer and inner square — a double line of arcades
connecting the two — and from these squares and
the arcades access was obtained, right and left,
to the streets and houses. Returning, therefore, to
the gate in the main wall, after passing in through
this, the outer square would be reached, measuring
10 yards in length and breadth, from which to right
and to left gateways opened to the road which ran
on the inner side of the main wall separating it
from the houses ; while straight on from the outer
square, and leading to the inner square in front of
each gateway of the central area, was the roadway
flanked on either side by the arcades. This road
was 7^ yards broad, being 100 yards in length
from square to square; and the archways form-
ing the arcades are stated to have numbered
fifty-three, probably twenty-six on either hand,
and one at the end, through which lay the
entrance from the outer square. The archways
were all alike, and at its entrance the road could
be closed off by double doors of teak wood. The
arcades were vaulted, being built of burnt brick
set in mortar, and they had ‘ Grecian windows ’

26

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

{Kiwd RAmtyah) opening on the roadway, these
being probably of pierced tiles, which while letting in
the sunlight kept out the rain; and rooms in the
arcades were originally tenanted by the GhuMrns,
the pages of the Caliph ^ The markets, within the
City of Manshr, had originally occupied the four
roadways from the g^tes flanked by these arcades,
but before many years had passed the Caliph
ordered all the shops to be, removed from within the
city, and he then built the suburb of Karkh, as will
be described in a following chapter, for the accom-
modation of the market people and the merchants,
the arcades thus cleared of the shops being used as
permanent barracks for the city police and the horse-
guard. At the end of the arcades came the inner
square, measuring lo yards by the like, which fronted
the gateway in the circular wall enclosing the central
area, while close to the gateway stood a double row
of small arcades, these probably being on either side
of the portico before the gatehouse.

Between the main and the inner wall, as already
said, the area of the four quadrants divided off by
the thoroughfares from the gates, was in the earlier
times built over by the houses of the immediate
followers of the Caliph Manshr, to whom had been
granted here plots of land, and before long the
whole space had come to be covered by a network
of roads and lanes. But the Caliph did not allow
his people to build their houses close up against
either the main wall or the wall of the central
area, for immediately within the main wall an
open ring 12^ yards broad was kept clear as

^ Ya'kubi, 239 ; idem. History, ii. 449 ; Ibn Rustah, io8 ; Khatib,
folios 68 a, ^ b, 70 a, b, 72 a j Mas udi, vi. 171,

II.]

The City of MansUr

27

a roadway, while outside the wall of the central
area there was also a clear space forming a road.
The houses in the streets and lanes of each quad-
rant could also, at need, be closed off from these
roads by strong gates.

The streets here in most cases continued to be
called after the names of those who had become
the owners of the houses and gardens when Mansfir
had first built the Round City : the full list is given
in Ya'kfibi, but this being merely a catalogue of
proper names, it is needless here to transcribe. In
the quadrant of houses on the south side, that
between the thoroughfares leading respectively to
the Basrah and Kufah Gates, the Caliph built his
great prison called the Matbak, standing in the
street of the same name, ‘ constructing it with well-
built walls and solid foundations; and until the
reign of Mutawakkil, grandson of Hirfin-ar-Rashid,
this remained the chief prison of Western Baghdad.
One of the roads near here was called after the Sunni
Im^m Abu Idanifah, who, as already mentioned,
had aided the Caliph Man^fir when laying out the
plan of the city. In some of the quadrants also
the streets were named after the trades of their
inhabitants, thus for instance between the Ba§rah
and the KhurSsdn Gates was the Street of the
Water-carriers, and in another quadrant we find
the Street of the Mu'adhdhin (or Crier to prayer),
and the Street of the Horse-guards.

The great central area of the Round City, as
already stated, was enclosed by the inner wall,
pierced by the four gates leading to the main
thoroughfares, and its circle must have had a
diameter of nearly 2,000 yards, being in other

28

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

words over a mile across. The gatehouses, which
thus opened into the central area from each of the
four squares at the end of the arcades already
described, were alike, and each gatehouse had
a vaulted portico before it, built of burnt bricks
set in mortar, leading into a great hall or passage-
way closed by an iron door. It would appear that
at first the wall of the central area had been pierced
by many doorways leading directly to the houses and
streets in the four quadrants immediately outside
this wall; but these openings the Caliph Mansfir,
at an early period, caused to be walled up, only
the four gates to the thoroughfares being kept open.
Mansfir further commanded that no one but himself
should enter the central area riding, and everybody
else had to leave his horse or mule at one of
the four gatehouses. It is related that ‘Isi ibn ‘Ali,
uncle of the Caliph, complained that he suffered so
much from weakness as to be unable to walk the
distance of about half a mile from the gatehouse
across to the palace, and he petitioned to be allowed
to ride in on his horse or else to make use of
a Sumpter mule. Mansfir, however, bade him in
that case betake himself to a woman’s litter, and
when'tsS. replied that he was ashamed before the
people to appear thus, the Caliph declined to allow
any exception to be made in his favour. On the
other hand it is reported that Difid ibn 'All,
another uncle of the Caliph, being very gouty, was
for a time permitted to be carried to the palace in
his litter, and the same privilege was also granted
to the heir-apparent Mahdi. On another of the
uncles of the Caliph, 'Abd-as-Samad by name, ask-
ing for a similar favour, the Caliph was induced to

11 .]

The City of Mansur

29

promise him the privilege of being carried by one of
the pack-mules commonly employed for bringing
in the filled water-skins for the use of the palace, so
soon as he, 'Abd-as-Samad, should succeed in laying
a conduit to bring water direct from outside the
Khurdsin Gate into the palace tanks. This work
'Abd-as-$amad successfully accomplished, making
the conduits of teak-wood {Sdf), and the Caliph
afterwards improved on the invention by digging
permanent watercourses from both the Dujayl Canal
and from the Karkhiyd, thus bringing a plentiful
supply of water into the palace and other parts of
the Round City. The beds of these new water-
courses he laid in cement, and they were arched
over throughout their whole length with burnt
bricks set in mortar, so that both summer and
winter (as it was said) in after-times water never
failed in any of the streets or quarters of the City
of Mansiir^.

^ Tabari, iii. 322, 323, 324 ; Ya'kubi, 240, 241 ; Khatlb, folios 72 a, b,
73 a, b ; also Yakut, i. 284, where (line 9) read Munakriscm (gouty) for
Mutafarrisan, which, in this context, has no sense. Ibn Khallikan,
No. 9, p. 16 ; No. 128, p. 30.

CHAPTER III

THE CITY OF mans<)r {continued)

The Palace of the Golden Gate, and the Diwdns or Public Offices.
The history of the Great Mosque of Man?iir. Kh^id the Barmecide
and the Palace of the Chosroes. Sums spent. The Khuld Palace
outside the Khurisin Gate. The foundation of Rusifah. Question
how long the Round City remained standing : the siege in the reign of
Amin. The Main Wall. Inundations destroy walls and houses.

The middle of the central area was occupied by
the palace of the Caliph and the Great Mosque, the
two standing side by side with a space kept free of
houses all round, except on the north-west side, in
the direction facing the Syrian Gate, where two
buildings had been erected close up against the
palace wall. One of these was the barrack for
the horse-guards of the Caliph, and the other is
described as standing adjacent, and probably stretch-
ing beyond the guardhouse ; it consisted of a broad
gallery, divided into two parts, and was supported
on columns of brickwork set in mortar. This double
gallery had originally been intended to serve, on
the one side, as the audience hall for the chief of the
city police, on the other for the audience hall of
the captain of the horse-guards ; but in later times,
when Ya'kfibl wrote, they were, he says, for the most

The City of MansUr

31

part used by the people as convenient places in
which to say their prayers. Beyond the space
which, as already stated, was kept clear all round
the palace and mosque, and thence extending back
to the limit of the encircling inner wall, were built
the various palaces of the younger children of the
Caliph MansGr and the houses of his servants, also
the public offices, such as the Treasury and the
Armoury, with the various buildings of the Chancery
(or Secretariat), of the Office for the Land Tax, of the
Privy Seal, of War and the Department of Public
Works, of the Household of the Caliph and the
Public Bakery, and finally of the Pay Office.

The great palace of MansQr, in the centre of his
Round City, was known as the Golden Gate (BAb-
adh-Dhahab) or the Palace of the Green Dome
(Al-Kubbat-al-Khadrd) ; sometimes also it was
named the Golden Palace. Its area covered a
space originally measuring about 200 yards square,
a,nd its central building was crowned by a great
dome, green in colour as already said, on the sum-
mit of which, at a height of 120 feet above the
ground, and visible from all quarters of Baghdad,
was the figure of a horseman. In later -times this
figure was credited with having been endowed
originally with the magical power of pointing its
lance in the direction from which the enemies of
the Caliph were about to appear^.

^ The account of the Magic Horseman is apparently first mentioned
by Khatib, who wrote in 450 (1038 A. D.). It is copied by Yakut
(i. 683), who is very angry at his predecessor for relating such fables,
‘ only worthy of Balin3,s,’ i, e. Apollonius of Tyana, adding that ' the
religion of I slim is not glorified by such fables,’ and assuring his
readers that all this ' is but a cheat and a manifest lie.’ It is seldom
that Yakut shows so much common sense.

32

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Under the dome, on the gfround-floor of the
palace, was an audience chamber measuring 30 feet
square, with a vaulted ceiling that was 30 feet
high at the summit ; and above this was built
a second chamber, of like dimensions to the first,
and its ceiling was formed by the interior of the
green dome. In front of the lower audience
chamber was a great open alcove — after the Persian
fashion and called the Aywin — surmounted by an
arch, the key-stone of which was 45 feet above the
pavement, and the width of this open Aywdn was
30 feet.

This was the first palace that Mansfir built himself ;
then, a few years afterwards he began laying out
the celebrated palace of the Khuld (to be described
later), which stood outside the Khurdsdn Gate of the
Round City, on the Tigpris bank. The Palace of
the Golden Gate, however, appears to have been
the official residence of Mansfir an d his immediate
successors. H^rfin-ar-Rashtd, it is true, preferred
the Khuld and lived for the most part there when
staying in Baghdad, but his son Amin again held
his court in the Palace of the Golden Gate, where
he is said further to have added a building of his
own invention, probably some sort of pinnacle or
belvedere \ During the great siege of Baghdad
in the year 198 (a.d. 814), when Amin began to be
hard pressed by the troops of his brother Mamun,
it was within Ae Golden Gate with the walls of
the Round City for a bulwark that his partisans
made their final stand. The great palace must

^ The word used by Tabari is Jandh^ literally ‘ a wing/ but apparently
here not a ^wing’ of a building as we use the term: cf. Dozy, s,v.
Jandh,

ni.] The City of Mansur 33

then have suffered considerable damage, for during
this siege the whole of the Round City was, for the
space of several weeks, continuously bombarded by
the catapults which Tihir, the commander of the
troops sent against his brother by Mamhn, had
erected in the suburbs ; and though the Green
Dome stood intact for more than a century after
this time, the palace itself does not appear to have
been used as a royal residence after the death of
Amin. Three-quarters of a century later a con-
siderable part of the Golden Palace was pulled down
in order to enlarge the neighbouring mosque; the
Green Dome, however, was left standing, and this
only fell to ruin in the year 329 (a. d. 941). During
the month of March of that year there were great
storms in Baghdad with heavy rains, and finally,
on the night preceding the eighth day of the month
Jumddi II, the Green Dome suddenly collapsed,
having been just before struck by a thunderbolt
and probably set on fire ^

The Great Mosque, as already stated, was built
by Manshr side by side with his palace of the
Golden Gate. The mosque did not exactly face
the Mecca point, as it should have done, the cause
being that its plan having only been laid down after
the palace was completed, the quadrangle of the
mosque, for the sake of symmetry, had to conform
to the already existing lines of the palace walls.
Hence the Riblah point was askew, the true direc-
tion of Mecca (it is said) bearing rather more
towards the Basrah Gate than the compass-point
marked by the Nich (Mihrib) in the end wall of

^ Ya'kubi, 340 ; idem. History, ii. 450 ; Tabari, iiL 326, 930 ; Khatib,
folios 68 b, 69 a, 99 b ; Yakut, i. 683, 684.

aaoBn&D D

34 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

the mosque, would indicate. To the spectator who
faced Mecca-wards, the Great Mosque must have
stood on the left or south-eastern side of the
Golden Palace — the guardhouses and halls it will
be remembered were on the opposite, north-western,
side — ^while the main fronts of both buildings, more
or less in a line, looked towards the Khurdslin Gate.
Assuming that this gate stood exactly to the north-
east in the line of the circular walls, the back wall of
the mosque, with the Kiblah point marked in its
centre by the Nich or Mihrib, would thus have
pointed due south-west, while the true direction of
Mecca from Baghdad is found to lie about south-
south-west, or as the Moslem writers have described
it, ‘ more towards the Basrah Gate,’ than due south-
west.

When first planned, the mosque covered an area
one-quarter that of the neighbouring palace, namely
a square measuring 200 ells or 100 yards either
way; and the original structure was of sun-dried
bricks set in clay, with a roof supported on wooden
columns. Most of these columns were (Constructed
of two or more beams or baulks of timber, joined
together endwise with glue, and clamped with iron
bolts ; but some five or six columns, those near the
minaret, were formed' each of a single tree-trunk.
All the columns supported round capitals, each
made of a block of wood, which was set on the
shaft, like a drum. This was the first mosque built
in Baghdad, and, as originally constructed by Man-
§fir, it stood for about half a century, when it was
pulled down by Harfin-ar-Rashid, who replaced its
somewhat primitive structure by an edifice solidly
built of kiln-burnt brick set in mortar. An inscrip-

III.] The City of MansUr 35

tion in honour of the Caliph Hirtin, mentipning
also the names of the architects and master-masons,
with the date — it was begun in 192 and finished
a year later (a. d. 809) — ^was set up on the outer
mosque wall, facing the Khurdsin Gate ; and this
inscription, apparently, was seen by Khatib, who
wrote in 450 (a. d. 1058). This mosque in subse-
quent times was commonly known as As-$ahn-al-
'Atik (the Old Court). However, before many years
had elapsed, its precincts had come to l3e too
narrow for the number of the worshippers who
crowded thither to the Friday prayers, and a neigh-
bouring house called the Dir-al-Kattdn, which had
originally been erected by the Caliph Mansfir for
one of the Diwins or public offices, was pressed
into service by the people, and used as an additional
mosque. This place, being the more convenient,
by the year 260 or 261 (a. d. 875) had come to be
almost exclusively used for the Friday prayers, and
the older mosque was left empty, a state of affairs
which was considered uncanonical by the . reigning
Caliph Mu'tadid, who was moved to remedy the
case by ordering the restoration and enlargement
of the Great Mosque. In the year 280 (a. d. 893),
therefore, a part of the neighbouring palace of
the Golden Gate was thrown down and its site
added to the area of the mosque ; and to this
extension access was given by seventeen arches,
pierced in the partition wall originally separating
the two buildings — thirteen archways opening from
the palace area into the Mosque Court, and four
into the Riwiks, the aisles or porticoes. Further,
and by order of the Caliph, the pulpit, the Mecca
Nich (Mihr^b), and the Mak§tirah or oratory, were

D 2

36 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

all fully restored and beautified, while what still
remained standing of the old mosque of the time
of Hdr&n-ar-Rashld was thoroughly cleaned and set
in order. Khatib mentions that Badr, the celebrated
Wazlr of Mu'tadid, was more especially made re-
sponsible for carrying into effect these additions
made to the mosque from the adjacent area of the
old palace of Mansfir, and Khatib adds that, in his
honour, these newer portions came afterwards to
be known as the Badriyah. Thus enlarged and
restored, the mosque is described by Ibn Rustah,
who wrote about the year 290 (a. d. 903), as a ‘ fine
structure of kiln-burnt bricks well mortared, which
is covered by a roof of teak wood supported on
columns of the same, the whole being ornamented
with (tiles the colour of) lapislazuli.'

During five centuries and more, while the Abbasid
Caliphs ruled in Baghdad, this mosque of the City
of Mansflr continued in use for the Friday prayers,
and its name frequently recurs in the chronicles.
In the year 450 (a.d. 1058) the rebel Basislrl, when
master of Baghdad, temporarily desecrated it by
causing the heretical Fatimite Caliph of Egypt to
be prayed for publicly on the Friday from its pulpit;
but this was only a passing insult to Sunni ortho-
doxy, and the mosque was, on the defeat of the
rebels, restored to the true Commander of the
Faithful. The Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, who visited
Baghdad about a century after this, namely in a.d.
1160, relates how the Caliph, who now had come
to be but rarely seen outside the walls of his great
palace' in' East Baghdad, once a year, at the feast
of the close of the Ramadan fast, visited in state
‘the mosque of the Basrah Gate quarter,’ as the

III.] The City of Mansur 37

Jewish traveller names it, adding that this was still
the metropolitan mosque of Baghdad. The building
appears even to have passed unhurt through the
great Mongol siege of the year 656 (a.d. 1258), for
its name does not occur in the list of the mosques
and shrines which were burnt and subsequently
restored by order of Hhldgh ; and in the year 727
(a.d. 1327), when Ibn Bathtah visited Baghdad, the
mosque of MansAr is mentioned as still standing.
At the present day, however, all traces of it have
entirely disappeared, and no remains apparently
were to be seen even in the last century, when
Niebuhr visited Baghdad, though the exact date
of its demolition is unknown '.

As already remarked, the houses of Baghdad
were for the most part built of sun-dried bricks,
a fact which must account for there being now
hardly any ruins of the ancient city. Kiln-burnt
bricks were, of course, to some extent used in many
of the public buildings, and at one time it would
appear that the Caliph Manshr had even had some
intention of taking the stones from the ruins of
Madiin (the ancient Ctesiphon and Seleucia), a few
leagues below Baghdad, on the Tigris bank, which
lay, therefore, conveniently to hand as a quarry for
building materials. In connexion with this matter
an anecdote is given, in which Khdlid, the first of
the Barmecides who rose to power at the Abbasid
court, plays a prominent part: he representing

’ Tabari, iii. 322; Khatib, folios 99 a to 100 b; Ibn Rustah, 109;
Ibn-al-Athir, ix. 441 ; Benjamin of Tudela, i. 97 ; Ibn Batutah, ii. 107.
Timur took Baghdad in the year 795 (a.d, 1393), ^tnd a yeir afterwards
ordered the city to be rebuilt : the old mosque of Mansdr may have
disappeared at this time, though no mention of it is made by Sharaf-
ad-Din.

38 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

the Persian influences which were later on to be
supreme. This Khilid, son of Barmak, was a
native of Balkh, where his father, a Magian of
some note, had become a Moslem at the time of the
first Arab conquest. Khilid himself had emigrated
westward when the Abbasid armies had been raised,
and had taken service under the first Caliph of the
new dynasty, Saffflh, by whom he was appointed
Wazlr, in which post Mansfir had retained his ser-
vices after his brother’s death. When Baghdad was
founded it became a question, as already said,
whether the plentiful materiaJs of stone and brick
existing at Madiin might not be used with advan-
tage for the buildings of the new city. There was
in particular the great White Palace of the Chosroes,
which Mansdr now proposed to demolish, and he
took counsel of Khilid the Barmecide how the work
should be carried out. The latter, however, im-
mediately strove to hinder its execution, trying to
persuade the Caliph to go elsewhere for his building
materials : this ancient palace, said Khdlid, had
become an abiding proof of the might of Islam;
it was an enduring monument, for all who should
behold it, of how the worldly glory of its builder,
the great Chosroes, had come to naught before
the religion of the Arabs, who had overthrown the
Persian monarchy, and whose sovereign now ruled
in its stead ; and Khdlid is reported to have added,
‘ Further, O Commander of the Faithful, the Caliph
‘All did make his prayer in this palace, wherefore
indeed let it stand.’ Mansfir, however, was not to
be turned from his purpose; he told Kh^llid that,
with all this specious reasoning, his real objection
to the destruction of the palace of tlie Chosroes

III.] The City of Mansur 39

lay in his (Khilid’s) veneration for the ancient
Persian monarchs and their monuments, and despite
his advice the Caliph ordered the demolition
of the White Palace to be begun. When in part
this had been accomplished, it was found that the
cost of breaking down the walls and then trans-
porting the materials upstream was greater than,
the price that new material in Baghdad would come
to ; and Manshr without further loss of time put a
stop to this extravagant demolition. Khilid there-
upon came forward and urged the Caliph for very
shame to continue his work, and pull down the
palace to its foundation ; otherwise, as he pointed
out, men would say that Manshr, the Successor of
the Prophet, was impotent even to destroy what
the Chosroes had built. The Caliph, however, with
practical common sense declined to ruin himself on
account of what men might say, and the work was
permanently abandoned. At a later date, as will
be mentioned in a subsequent chapter, part of this
Madiin palace was pulled down to supply materials
for building the T^lj, a palace in Eastern Baghdad
begun by the Caliph Mutadid. On this latter
occasion, however, the work of demolition must have
been only in part carried out, for the ruins of the
White Palace still tower above the Tigris bank
at Ctesiphon, the solid building of the Sassanian
epoch having survived the palaces of the Caliphs,
to be a record, if the anecdote be true, of the
patriotic spirit displayed by the first of the Barme-
cides. This KhS.lid, son of Barmak, it will be
remembered, was the father of YahyS., who with
his two sons, the Wazlr Ja'far and the courtier Fa<Jl,
enjoyed the favour and contributed so much to the

40

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

glory of Hir{in-ar-Rashid : their ultimate disgrace
and sudden downfall being the proverbial example
in Oriental history of the change of fortune and
the mutability of royal favour ^

Some curious details are given by our authorities
regarding the sums of money which the Caliph
Manshr, who was noted for his parsimony, spent on
the building of Baghdad. The sum total disbursed,
when the Caliph came to take the accounts, for
building the palace and the double walls, and for
digging the ditch, is set down by Tabari at 4,000,833
.silver dirhams, and in addition of copper coins {fils)
they had spent 100,023,000. These figures (with
minor variations, probably due to the errors of
copyists) are repeated by many subsequent authori-
ties, and turned into modern currency the sum in
dirhams is equivalent to about ,^160,000, while the
copper coins come to some 200,000. Khatib, and
Yikht (following him), on the other hand, estimate
the sum total at 18,000,000 gold dinars, equivalent
to about ;^9,ooo,ooo sterling in our money, and some
further variations in the figures are given by Khatib
in his history of Baghdad^.

Such was the Round City, the building of which
Man§Clr had completed by the year 149 (a.d. 766);
and shortly after tliis date the great suburbs, which
will form the subject of the following chapters, began
to be laid out beyond the three gates of Basrah,
Khfah, and Syria.

At the Khurdsin Gate, opening on the Tigris and
the Main Bridge of Boats, the Caliph, as already

' Tabari, iii. 320 ; Yakut, i. 426,

® Tabari, Hi. 326; Mukaddasi, 121; Khatib, folio 65 b; Yakut, i.
683.

III.]

The City of MansUr

41

stated, built himself a second great palace which he
called the Khuld, ^nd the later history of this palace
uill be given in a subsequent chapter \

The opposite or eastern bank of the Tigris had
hitherto been unoccupied by any buildings, when
Manshr, the Round City being now completed, in the
year 15 1 (a.d. 768) proceeded to lay the foundations
of a mosque and palace on the Persian side of
the river, and the new suburb took the name of
Rus&fah (the Causeway), from the dyked road leading
across the marsh-land in the bend of the Tigris.
This causeway started from the further end of the
bridge of boats ; and the suburb of Rusifah formed
the nucleus of Eastern Baghdad, which afterwards
came to be the main half of the metropolis when the
Caliphs, after building the eastern palaces, took up
their abode here, and transferred the government
offices to the Persian side of the stream. Hence it
came about that the Caliph Manshr was not only 1;he
founder of Western, but also of Eastern Baghdad,

^ It is nowhere precisely stated what was the orientation of the four
gates of the Round City ; but they are known to have been equidistant,
and a number of considerations tend to the conclusion that they must
almost exactly have faced respectively the NE. and the NW., the SE.
and the SW. points. Trial on the map shows that no other position
will better suit the circumstances of the case, for, since the course of
the Tigris going through Baghdad ran from north-west to south-east,
(i) the Khur^sS-n Gate, which opened on the main bridge, must have
faced north-east, being at right angles to the river, and (2) the Basrah
Gate south-east, this opening on the road which went down parallel
with the Tigris* Then, as will be seen in the next chapter, from
outside (3) the KOfah Gate two roads diverged, one south to KOfah,
the other turning westward to Muhawwal and Anbir— south-west,
therefore, halfway between the two points; will suit the requirements
for this gate ; while (4) the Syrian Gate which faced north-west gave
access bofh to the northern suburbs and to the Anb^r road, which last
turned off at a right angle to the northern roads and ran due west
from beyond this gate to the nearest point on the Euphrates.

44

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

would appear to have remained standing. The palace
of th Golden Gate in the centre, as has already been
mentioned, only fell to ruin in 329 (a.d. 941), and
the mosque was in use down to the eighth century
(the fourteenth a.d.) after the Mongol siege. In
regard to the main wall of the Round City, I bn
Serapion, writing about the year 300 (a.d. 913), states
that a canal coming down the road outside the Khfah
Gate threw off a branch which entered ‘ part of the
remains of the City of Manshr,’ proving that the line
of the main wall in this quarter must have been cut
or tunnelled through at the date in question. On
the other hand Khatib reports that in the year 307
(a.d. 919) the populace of Baghdad, having risen
in insurrection, broke open the prisons in the
City of Manshr and set free their inmates. The
prisoners, however, were promptly recaptured by
the city police, who closed the iron gates of the City
of Manshr, and at their leisure hunted down the
malefactors, who were thus entrapped within the
circuit of the walls ; but this is apparently the last
mention of these gates being closed. Inundations,
both of the Tigris and of the Euphrates (the last
coming down through the 'tsd Canal), were wont
periodically to lay Baghdad in partial ruin — the
waters having at all times been difficult to keep in
check — and one such inundation is reported by
Khatib to have taken place in the year 330 and odd
(about A.D. 942), which destroyed the arcades in
the Round City near the KAfah Gate. This inun-
dation was caused by the bursting of the dams on the
Euphrates at a place called Kubbin, which regulated
the waterflow of the ' ls4 Canal. A volume of black
water, it is reported, burst, suddenly into the Round

The City of MansUr

45

ni.]

City, and the flood destroyed many houses, among
others the house of the narrator', from whom Khatib
had copied his account, who was forced to remove
his family up stream to Mosul, where he had to
remain for two years, until the damage done by the
flood had been repaired. In regard to the four great
gatehouses in the main wall, Mas'fidl, writing in the
year 332 (a.d. 944), alludes incidentally to these as
still standing in his day, apparently with their upper
chambers and vaulted cupolas still intact; further
(and in this he confirms the account given by Khatib),
the same author speaks of the green dome of the
Palace of the Golden Gate as having fallen ‘ in our
own times,’ evidently alluding to the ruin caused by
the great storm of the year 329, which was just three
years before Mas'hdl finished his chronicle called the
Golden Meadoiss (Murhj-adh-Dhahab).

With the close of the fourth century (the tenth
A.D.) much of the older City of Manshr must have
disappeared, and in the year 370 (a. d. 980), as will
be described more fully in a later chapter, the
site of the great palace of the Khuld outside its
walls, which had remained for some decades an
uninhabited ruin, was cleared, preparatory to the
building of the New Hospital (Bimiristdn) by the
Buyid Prince 'Adud-ad-Dawlah. From many inci-
dental allusions in the chronicles, it would appear
that various remaining portions of the Round City
had gradually come to be absorbed among the
buildings, forming the quarters of West Baghdad,
which rose up beyond and round the four ancient
gates of the City of Man^hr. Thus the Great
Mosque, down to the period of the Mongol invasion,
was counted as forming part of the Quarter at

46 Baghdad during the Caliphate

the Basrah Gate ; the Khurisin Gate and its
neighbourhood became incorporated into the market
(Shk) which had sprung up round the ‘A^udi
hospital, and was connected with the quarter along
the river bank, known eis the Shir? : while from the
Mosque of Manshr to beyond the Syrian Gate ruins
extending over nearly a mile existed in the time of
YikCt, namely the seventh century (the thirteenth
A. D.), and the inhabited houses of the older city,
round this gate, were then considered to form part
of the yarbiyah Quarter, which had formerly ex-
tended to the northward beyond the gate. Lastly,
the Khfah Gate, which, as has been above described,
had suffered much injury from the inundations,
together with its adjacent streets and houses, would
appear to have been absorbed into the Muhawwal
Gate Quarter on the west, or to have come to form
part of Karkh on the south, which latter quarter
having survived all its rivals is now the only
relic left standing of the ancient city of Western
Baghdad

* See Plan, No. VII ; Ibn Serapion, 25 ; Kliatib, folios 71 b, 72 b ;
Masudi, vi. 171 ; Marasid, ii, 388, who mentions another bursting of
the Kubbin dam during the reign of Musta*sim, the last Abbasid
Caliph.

CHAPTER IV

THE CANALS OF WESTERN BAGHDAD

Ya'kubi and Ibn Serapion. The older Dujayl Canal. The Nahr *tsd
and the Sarit Canal. The Katrabbul and BSlduriyi districts. The
Trench of Tihir. The KarkhUyd Canal and its branches. , The Canal
of the Syrian Gate. The Batdtiyi and the channels of the Harbiyah
Quarter. Comparative sizes of these various watercourses.

Our systematic knowledge of the topography of
Baghdad is derived fr(jm two nearly contemporary
sources, namely Ya'khLj., who wrote near the end of
the third century of the Hijrah, and Ibn Serapion,
whose work dates from the beginning of the fourth,
in other words, respectively a short time before
and after the year 900 a. d. The first of these
authorities, Ya'kiibi, describes the various quarters
and buildings of the city as the traveller would
pass them when riding, in turn, along one or
other of the great highroads which radiated to the
chief points of the compass from the four gates
of the Round City. Ibn Serapion, on the other
hand, chiefly occupies himself with tracing out the
network of canals whose ramifications traversed
the suburbs of the Round City, which in his time
had come to form Western and Eastern Baghdad,
In the following pages it is by the intersection of

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch

the various watercourses with the highroads that,
combining the two descriptions, we are enabled to lay
out a rough sort of triangulation, and thus remake
the plan of the great city of the Caliphs, of which
otherwise the few ancient ruins that still occupy the
sites of its former buildings would hardly have
afforded us sufficient data for the reconstruction
of its topography.

As is well known, the Arabs had inherited from
the Persians, their predecessors in Mesopotamia,
the system of canalization which connected the
lower course of the Euphrates with the Tigris,
making the Sawid — as the alluvial plain to the
west and south of Baghdad was named — one of
the most fruitful countries of the East. The system
of canals thus adopted had for its object to employ
the surplus waters of the Euphrates entirely for
irrigating the lands lying between the two great
rivers; while on the other hand the waters of the
Tigris, being tapped by canals from its eastern
bank, a portion of its stream was thus carried
by irrigation channels through the lands which lay
on the Persian or eastern side of the river. The
greatest of the canals taken from the Tigris was
the eastern offshoot called the Ifithl-Nahrawin
channel, dating from the days of the Chosroes,
from which directly or indirectly the lands of
Eastern Baghdad were irrigated ; but at a sub-
sequent period a lesser system of canals was also
derived from the western bank of the Tigris
above Baghdad — namely the Ish&kiyah and the
later Dujayl — from which, after the date when Ibn
Serapion wrote, the lands to the north of Western
Baghdad likewise came to receive their water supply

IV.] The Canals of Western Baghdad 49

from the Tigris. The four great irrigation canals,
which in part drained the Euphrates into the^ Tig^s,
bore respectively the names of the Nahr Tsi, the
Nahr §arsar, the Nahr Mdlik, and the Nahr Khthfi,
of which the highest up, namely the 'ts^L Canal,
supplied water to a full moiety of the lands of
Western Baghdad. Further, at the time when the
Caliph Manshr was building the Round City, the
older Dujayl Canal running from the Euphrates
to the Tigris, with a course parallel to and above
the Nahr ‘tsi, was still in existence; and thus,
during the first two centuries after the foundation
of the city, Western Baghdad was irrigated solely
by the waters of the Euphrates. At a date sub-
sequent to this, namely by the close of the fourth
century (the tenth a. d.), the Dujayl, by the silting
in of its upper course, had ceased to receive the
waters of the Euphrates ; and a new, shorter channel
was then dug connecting the lower Dujayl with the
Tigris, from the right bank of which it continued to
draw its waters, irrigating the district of Maskin and
supplying the needs of the I^arbiyah Quarter of
Western Baghdad, during subsequent times K

In order to gain a general idea of the ground
plan of Western Baghdad in mediaeval times it will
be convenient to summarize in this chapter • the
account which Ibn Serapion has given of the canals
which embraced the Round City of Man?fir in a
network of waterways. All these, as already re-
marked, were derived from one of two sources,
namely, either from the Nahr 'is^L or from the
Dujayl Canal.

* See/. Jt. A. S., 1895, ‘ Notes on Ibn Serapion,’ p. 747. The follow-
ing description is from the Arabic text, pp. 14, 15, and pp. 24 to a8.

BAGHDAD

50 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

The point where the Nahr 'Isi left the Euphrates
was almost on the same parallel of latitude as that
occupied by Baghdad on the Tigris, and the 'tsd
Canal flowed, speaking generally, due east. At what
Ibn Serapion describes as ‘ a short distance ’ — say
one mile — before coming to the township of Muhaw-
wal, which itself lay three miles distant from the
City of Mansflr, the'lscL Canal bifurcated, and the
left branch took the name of the Nahr-as-Sardt.
The main channel, to the right, still keeping its
name of the Nahr 'tsS, curving first southward and
then north-east almost through a semicircle, traversed
the great southern suburb of Karkh, and finally
flowed out into the Tigris at a spot some little
way below the City of Mansfir, which was known
as Al-Fardah or ‘ the (Lower) Harbour.’

The $ardt Canal (the branch to the left at the
bifurcation of the Nahr ‘tsi above Muhawwal) fol-
lowed a course almost parallel in direction with the
parent channel, which ultimately brought it to
the south-western side of the Round City at the
Old Bridge, a short distance outside the Ktlfah
Gate. From here it curved round the city wall,
passed up in front of the Basrah Gate, and con-
tinuing north-eastward for a short distance, flowed
out into the Tigris below the gardens of the Khuld
Palace, which, as already described, lay outside the
Khurisin Gate, and to the right of the road leading
to the Main Bridge of Boats.

The line of the Sardt Canal formed the boundary
dividing the two districts of Katrabbul and Bddurayd
one from the other, which, occupying the western
bank of the Tigris, lay opposite to the two districts
of Nahr Buk and Kalwddhd on the eastern side

IV.] The Canals of Western Baghdad 51

of the river ; and hence the two halves of Baghdad,
west and east, are described as standing on the
ground where these four districts met. On the
western side of the Tigris, with which we have
now to deal, the land that lay on the left bank
of the §arit, and upstream as regards the Tigris,
or as the Arabs deemed it, the ‘western’ side
of the Sarit, was the Katrabbul district ; while from
the right bank, or, as they wrote, to the ‘ east ’ of
the $arat, stretched the BAduriy^ district, down-
stream along the course of the Tigris. Hence, while
the suburb of Karkh lay in Bidur^yi, the City of
Mansur and its northern suburbs were situated in
the Ifatrabbul district.

The §arit Canal', at a distance of one league from
its point of origin (and therefore a mile or more
before it reached the City of Man§Cir at the Khfah
Gate), bifurcated, and the left branch was called the
Trench of Tahir. This canal, turning sharp off
to the north-east, almost at a right angle, flowed
round the outer side of the northern suburb of
Baghdad (called the Harbiyah), and beyond this
its waters joined the Tigris about a mile above the
Round City, at a place which, like the mouth of
the Nahr 'tsd, is known as ‘the Harbour’ (Al-Fardah).
In the following pages, however; in order clearly to
distinguish between the two Fardahs, they will be
named respectively the Upper and the Lower
Harbour.

At a short distance down its course the Trench
of Tihir threw out a branch canal to the right,
which flowing south-east was known as the Little
$arfit, and this after a comparatively short course
curved back to join the main Sarit Canal at a point

E 2

52

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

just before the latter reached the wall of the City of
Man§hr outside the Khfah Gate.

From the foregoing description it will be seen
that, upstream, the Round City and its northern
suburb (the yarblyah) stood in the space embraced
between the SarS-t Canal and its left branch the
Trench of Tdhir; and that, downstream, the gpreat
southern suburb of Karkh covered the tract of
ground which lay enclosed between the lower
reaches of the $ar4t and the 'IscL Canal; while
the right bank of the Tigris, in either case, formed
the third side of these two triangular parcels of land
on which Western Baghdad was thus built.

The water-channels which, flowing between the
Sarit and the Nahr 'Isi, traversed the southern
suburb of Karkh, were exclusively derived from the
Karkhiyi Canal, a stream which the Nahr 'IslL
threw off from its left bank at a point about a mile
below the Muhawwal township. The KarkhelyS., as
its name implies, was in fact the ‘ Canal of Karkh ’ ;
and after sending out four branches to the left and
one to the right, it finally discharged the remainder
of its waters into the parent channel of the Nahr
'IsS,, at a place close above the Lower Harbour,
where the 'ls4 Canal, as already noticed, itself dis-
embogued into the Tigris.

Of the four left-hand branches of the Karkhiyi,
the first was called, in its upper reach, the Nahr
Razin, while lower down it became the -Nahr Abu
‘Attib. It traversed Inner Karkh, passing through
the Pool of Zalzal, and ultimately flowing out into
the $ar3.t Canal just below the New Bridge outside
the Basrah Gate of the Round City. The second
left-hand branch was called the Nahr Bazziztn

IV.] The Cfinals of Western Baghdad 53

(the Canal of the Clothes-merchants). It passed
through the Mart of the Clothes-merchants and other
markets, finally flowing out direct into the Tigris
after traversing the Sharkiyah or ‘eastern suburb,’
which lay outside the Basrah Gate on the river
bank. The third branch, also to the left hand, was
called the Nahr-ad-DajSj (the Fowls’ Canal), its
banks being occupied by the poulterers, and this
again ran out direct into the Tigris, following a
nearly parallel course to the Nahr BazzSzin. The
next branch from the Karkhiyi was the single canal,
which was taken from its right bank. This was
called the Nahr-al-Kilib (the Canal of the Dogs),
and it carried a moiety of the waters of the Karkhiyi.
back into the Nahr *ls4, going to rejoin this last
immediately below the Thorn Bridge (l^antarah-
ash-Shawk), which will be spoken of later. The
fifth branch of the KarkhAy^ (being the fourth to
the left) was called the Nahr-al-Kalliyln (the Canal
of the Cooks who sold fried meats), and this after
a short course flowed out into the third branch canal,
already mentioned, namely that of the Poulterers or
the Nahr-ad-Daj4j. Finally the Karkhdyi fell into
the 'Isi Canal, as before stated, and its lower course
took the name of the Nahr Tdbik, as will be noticed
in its due place.

It has been already mentioned that the northern
part of Baghdad, on this western bank of the Tigris,
was called the Idarbiyah Quarter, and this neigh-
bourhood was supplied with water from canals which
branched from the Dujayl. Before, however, pro-
ceeding to describe these, we must give attention
to the small watercourse into which two of these
channels from the Dujayl ultimately flowed. This

54

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

is called the Canal of the Syrian Gate, and it was
a derivative of the first branch canal from the
Karkhiyi, namely the Nahr Razin, from the left
bank of which it was led off shortly after the Nahr
Raztn had itself branched to the left from the parent
stream of the Karkhayi.

This minor canal ran at a higher level than the
neighbouring Sar^t, and turning northwards from
the Razin, its waters were carried over and across
the main stream of the Sar^t by a conduit built in
the masonry of the Old Bridge. Here the channel
skirted the Khfah highroad, and after going up
some way towards the Khfah Gate, it turned off
to the left, and curved along outside the wall of the
Round City (which lay to the right), flowing on
towards the Syrian Gate. Before, however, reaching
this, it sent off a branch to the right hand, which,
as mentioned in the previous chapter, penetrated
across the circular walls, disappearing among the
remains of the City of Mansur. Immediately before
and again after reaching the Syrian Gate, the
main channel of the small canal which we are
describing, received on its left bank the surplus
waters of two of the Harbiyah water-channels (as
will be detailed in the next paragraph) ; it then
finally turned northwards, and after flowing along
the' road leading from the Syrian Gate to the Upper
Bridge of Boats, its stream lian dry in the quarter
near this bridge, called the Zubaydtyah Fief.

Coming finally to the water system of the Har-
biyah Quarter, it is to be noted that the three small
watercourses which were brought into this suburb
from the north, by conduits crossing the Trench of
Tflhir, all ran at the same high level as the small

IV.] The Canals of Western Baghdad 55

canal of the Syrian Gate, just described. These
three Idarbiyah watercourses were all derivatives
of the canal called the Nahr BatitiycL, which finally
gave its name more especially to the westernmost
of the three branches, and which itself was taken
from the right or western bank of the Dujayl Canal,
some distance above Baghdad.

Of these three branches of the Nahr Ba^tiyi,
the first, from its left bank, and therefore that
flowing most to the eastward and the nearest to
the Tigris, passed into the Idarblyah by the bridge
crossing the Trench of T^hir at the tfarb Gate, and
after traversing the suburb by a somewhat serpentine
course, finally poured its waters into the lower reach
of the Canal of the Syrian Gate, as has been already
mentioned. The next branch from the Batatiyjl
Canal came into the Idarbiyah Quarter by a conduit
specially built for the purpose, which spanned the
Trench of Tdhir between the Harb Gate and the
next gate to the west, called the Iron Gate. This
watercourse, like the first, also poured its overflow
into the Canal of* the Syrian Gate (after throwing
off two minor channels, right and left), its point of
junction being somewhat to the westward of the
Syrian Gate. The third branch, called more par-
ticularly the Batdtiya Canal, entered the northern
suburbs by the bridge at the Anbir Gate, the
westernmost of the four gates on the line of the
Trench. This canal then flowed down the Anbir
Road, but after a short course its waters failed, and
it finally ran dry in branch-channels. It will thus
be observed that all the water channels of the
yarbiyah Quarter sooner or later ran dry and failed,
no water from them flowing out into the Tigris.

56 Baghdad during the Caliphate

They were, indeed, mere water-conduits (Kanat)
rather than canals, and we are told that within the
limits of the Harbiyah Quarter their courses were
underground.

An estimate of the respective sizes of the various
canals which we have above enumerated may be
gained by noticing whidi of these needed to be
spanned by bridges (Kantarah) of stone or brick
at the points where they were crossed by the high-
roads. By this criterion it becomes evident that
the Nahr 'ts&, the $arit, and the Trench of T&hir,
all three crossed by numerous bridges, were main
streams, and the same term may be applied to the
upper reach of the Karkhiyi before it branched off
among the numerous canals of Karkh. All the
remaining canals — though each bore the title of
Nahr (canal or river) — were mere watercourses,
partly open and partly carried underground, but all
of a size to be easily crossed on the level by the
various thoroughfares, under which their waters
must have been carried through culverts.

*1 C 0|l«d -At

Neighbouring Subui>lis

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CHAPTER V

THE K^FAH HIGHROAD AND THE KARKH SUBURB

Square at Kiifah Gate and various Fiefs. The Old Bridge and
bifurcation of Muhawwal and ICiifah Roads. Market of Abu-1- Ward :
the Ibn Raghbin and Anbirite Mosques. Pool of Zalzal. The Old
Hospital and buildings on the *Ainiid. The Karkh Suburb and Gate.
The story of the Greek Envoy. The Fief of Rabf. WarthM and
Bayiwari. The Gate of the Coppersmiths ; the Square of Suwayd
and the Tuesday Market.

In describing the suburbs which stretched beyond
the gates of the City of Manshr — ^which suburbs,
after a brief lapse of time, through the levelling of
the circular walls, became the western half of the
metropolis of Baghdad — it will be found convenient
to follow in turn the lines of the chief highroads
which began at each of the four gates of the Round
City. This is the method pursued by Ya'lfhbt,
and, taking him for guide, the present account
begins at the Khfah Gate, from which went the
great southern highway, namely the Pilgrim-road
to Mecca and Medina. Bearing next to the east-
ward, and then north up the river bank, the
description will follow of the various roads and
suburbs lying respectively beyond the gates of
Basrah and of KhurisUn ; the quarters to the north

6o

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

road led immediately to the Old Bridge crossing
the Great Sarit, as Ya‘kiibl names this canal from
below the point of junction of its upper reach with
the waters of the Little Sar&t. The Old Bridge
(Al-Kantarah al-'Atikah) was a solid structure, with
arches built of kiln-burnt bricks set in mortar, which
according to Ya'kfibt came to be called ‘ old’ merely
because it was the first piece of building executed
by the Caliph Mansflir ; Tabari, on the other hand,
states that the bridge was more ancient than this
and dated from Persian times, which may indeed
have been the case, since the Sassanian kings are
credited with having dug the $arit Canal’.

Shortly after crossing this bridge the road
bifurcated. That to the right, westward, was the
highroad of Muhawwal, leading ultimately to the
township of that name, one league distant from
Baghdad, and this road will be described later on.
To the left at the bifurcation, and running almost
straight south, the gpreat Kfifah road turned off,
leading to the gate of the Karkh Suburb, and
traversing on its way the market called the Sfik
of Abu-l-Ward. This market took its name from
one of Man§fir’s nobles, to whom the fief here had
been originally granted. He was at one time
Chief Clerk of the Public Treasury (Bayt-al-Mil),
and during the reign of the Caliph Mahdi was
Judge in the Court of Appeal and Superintendent
of the Briefs. This market is described as having
been well supplied with wares of all kinds, and
beyond it eastward towards the river bank various
fiefs are named. Here stood two mosques, one

’ Tabari, iii. aSo; Ya'kubi, 343; Ibn Serapion, 345 Yakut, ii. 964;
Hi. 194.

V.] The Kufah Highroad and Karkh Suburb 6i

named after a certain I bn Raghbin, the other
called the mosque of the people of Anbdr, who
originally were the scribes of the Diwin-al-Khar4j
(the Office of the Land Tax), and who lived with
their families in the streets round this mosque.
We are told that the site of the neighbouring
mosque of I bn Raghbin had in ancient times been
a dungheap, and it was named after Ibn Raghbin,
freedman of Habib ibn Maslamah, who had been
governor of these districts in the days of the
Caliphs ‘Othmdn and Mu'dwiyah. In later times
the Ibn Raghbin Mosque became celebrated for
the assemblies of learned men which took place
here. It must have stood at some distance to the
eastward of the Abu-l-Ward market, and the fief of
Rayasinah occupied the land close to this mosque,
at some distance beyond which was the Barley Gate,
apparently not far from the river bank, as will be
described on a later page.

Through and across the Abu-l-Ward market
passed the canal called the Nahr Abu ‘Attib, the
name given to the lower reach of the Nahr Razln
(the first branch canal, it will be remembered, from
the Karkhiyi), and this ultimately joined the §arit
below the New Bridge at the Basrah Gate of the
Round City, On the course of the Abu 'Attib
Canal, and just beyond the market, came the pool
called after Zalzal the lute-player, ‘whose playing
had passed to a proverb for its grace ; ' this Zalzal
being the brother-in-law of the even more celebrated
musician Ishik of Mosul, whose orchestra and choir
of singers were the delight of the court of Hiriin-
ar-Rashid. Zalzal dug the pool, and, at his death,
left it to the people of Baghdad for the public use.

62

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

with a sufficient endowment to keep it in repair.
It is said that in the days before Baghdad was built,
a village called Sil, which had at one time given
its name to a suburb here, occupied the ground
between where the pool was dug and the site of
the Palace of Waddih, which lay beyond this to-
wards the New Bridge, but after the time of the
celebrated lute-player, this quarter took the name
of the Birkat (or Pool of) Zalzal, and the name
Sil fell completely into disuse ^

Turning to the western side of the Kifah highroad,
the Nahr Razln or Abu * Attib Canal, as described
above, was the left branch at that bifurcation of the
Karkhiyi which occurred immediately after this
canal had passed under the Hospital Bridge —
Kantarah-al-Bimiristin. Here the right branch was
considered the main channel of the Karkhiyi, and
locally was known as Al-Amid, a name which in
Arabic signifies ‘the Trunk canal.’ After flowing
under the bridge, the canal passed beside the build-
ings of the (old) Hospital, the prototype in early
Baghdad of the great Blmiristin, or Miristin*® of
*Adud-ad-Dawlah, which the Buyid prince (half a
century later than the time of I bn Serapion) built
on the Tigris bank. This older Bimiristin is
presumably the institution where the celebrated
Rhazes — as westerns called the Physician Muham-
mad ibn Zakariyi-ar-Rizl — gave his lectures, thus
founding the Baghdad medical school. Rhazes
died in 320 (a.d. 932), and half a century later the

^ Ya*kubi, 244, 245 ; Ibn Serapion, 25 ; Ibn Kutaybah, 299 ; Khatib,
folios 82 b, 84 a; Yakut, i. 592; ii. 795 ; iii. 201 ; iv. 142, 524.

® This last is the shortened Arabic form of the Persian word, which
means ‘a place for the sick/ For Rhaaes see Abu-l-Faraj, 274.

V.] The Kufah Highroad and Karkh Suburb 63

'Adudi Hospital (above named) was built, where
the work he had begun was ably continued. Below
the (old) Hospital the KarkhciyeL or 'Amhd Canal,
before it again bifurcated at the Clothes-merchants’
Market to form the Nahr Bazzdztn, had, upon
one or other of its banks, the following places,
of which however nothing but the names are
known : — first, Ad-Darribit, meaning ‘ the house of
the female musicians,’ standing next to which was
the mill of a certain Abu- 1 - If asim : then came the
place or street inhabited by the men of Wisit, and
lastly a building called Al-Khafkah, meaning ‘the
Clappers,’ from some craft or trade (possibly con-
nected with cloth-fulling) which was carried on here
upon the bank of the stream.

Ibn Serapion tells us that it was from the 'Amfid
section of the Karkhdy^L that all the canals were
taken which ran through the quarters of the inner
Karkh suburb ; while Outer Karkh was the quarter
traversed by the various ramifications which started
from the lower reach of the Karkhdyi Canal. At
the southern end of the market of Abu-l-Ward, and
on the Bazzdzin Canal which branched from the
'Amfid, stood the gate called the Bib-al-Karkh,
opening into this great suburb. It would appear
that Karkh, as a separate township, had existed
before the times of Islam, and the Persian writer
Hamd-Allah asserts that it was founded by the
Sassanian king Shipiir II, surnamed by the Arabs
Dhu-l-Aktif, who reigned from a.d. 309 to 379^.

^ Nuzhat, 146. According to Yakut fiv. 252) Karkh is a Nabathaean,
as we should say an Aramaean or Syriac word, derived from a verb in
that language, meaning *to collect water in any place’; and Yakut
adds that the word was still in use among the Aramaean population of

64 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Be this as it may, Moslem Karkh, the great suburb
when planned by the Caliph Manshr, occupied those
lands to the southward of the Khfah and Basrah
Gates, which were included between the Sarit Canal
and the Nahr'fsi. Before the century had elapsed,
however, Karkh began to overpass the limit of the
'tsi Canal, and by the time of Hirhn-ar-Rashid this
suburb extended far to the southward of the great
canal, covering ground along both sides the Khfah
highroad for a considerable distance out from
Baghdad. Thus YakAbl says that Karkh measured
two leagues in length, the upper limit being at
the Palace of Waddi^, outside the Basrah Gate,
and the lower at the Tuesday Market; while in its
breadth Karkh measured a league across, reckoning
from the Tigris bank on the east to the Fief of
Rabi' on the west, this last lying immediately oh
the right hand of one coming down the Khfah high-
road, after passing through the B^lb-al-Karkh. After
describing the extent of Karkh, Ya'khbt, the con-
temporary of its prime, then continues : ‘ Here every
merchant, and each merchandise, had an appointed
street : and there were rows of shops, and of booths,
and of courts, in each of those streets ; but men of
one business were not mixed up with those of another,
nor one merchandise with merchandise of another
sort. Goods of a kind were only sold with their
kind, and men of one trade were not to be found
except with their fellows of the same craft. Thus
each market was kept single, and the merchants

Mesopotamia in his day. The name of Karkh appears in Syriac
under the form Karka ; and the name of the Karkhiyi Canal, which
traversed it, is the Syriac form of the corresponding relative noun or
adjective. See Frankel, p, xx ; Hoffmann, p. 43.

V.] The Kufah Highroad and Karkh Suburb 65

were divided according to their merchandise, each
craftsman being separated from others not of his
own class.’

Karkh, which thus before long became the great
commercial centre of Western Baghdad, though
founded by Mansftr, was an afterthought on the
part of the/daliph, no such suburb being included
in his original plan of the Round City. As already
described, the markets had been at first placed
within the city walls, in the arcades which radiated
from each of the four gates of the inner wall to
the outer gates of Kfifah, Basrah, Khurisdn, and
Syria (see above, p. 26). The cause of the removal
of the markets from the arcades is thus related by
Tabari (and he has been copied by many later
authorities) : The Emperor of the Greeks had sent
one of his Patricians on an embassy to Manslir,
and before the envoy was dismissed back to Con-
stantinople, the Caliph ordered his chamberlain
Rabi' to conduct the Greek over his new capital,
namely the Round City, then recently completed.
So the envoy was shown over all the new buildings
and palaces, and was taken up on the tops of the
walls and into the domes above the gateways. At
the farewell audience, the Caliph inquired what the
Greek had thought of the new city, and he received
these words in reply: ‘Verily (said the envoy), I
have seen handsome buildings, but I have also
seen that thy enemies, O Caliph, are with thee,
within thy city.’ For explanation he added that
the markets within the city walls, being always full
of foreign merchants, would become a source of
danger, since these foreigners would not only act
as spies for carrying information to the enemy, but

BAGHDAD F

66

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

also, being domiciled in the markets, they would have
it in their power traitorously to open the city gates
at night to their friends outside. Pondering over
this answer, the Caliph Mans fir — as the chronicle
says — ordered the markets to be removed to form
suburbs outside the various gates : and in Karkh
the new market street, as originally laid out, along
the main thoroughfare measured 40 ells or 20 yards
in width.

From the time of Manshr onwards this great
market suburb continually increased in extent, and
a great fire which occurred here about a century
after its foundation, during the reign of the Caliph
Withik (then residing at Sdmarri), was not allowed
to become a permanent damage, for Karkh was
promptly rebuilt, the Caliph contributing, it is re-
ported, a million dirhams (some ;^40,ooo) from his
private purse towards the expenses of laying out
the neAV roadways. After the building of Karkh
and of the other suburbs of Western Baghdad, —
but more especially as a consequence of the rise
of the new quarters on the eastern river bank, to
which the seat of government before the close of
the third century (the ninth a.d.) came to be trans-
ferred, — the old City of Mansfir fell more and more
to decay, and before long all the business still left in
Western Baghdad had come to centre in Karkh.
Extending a mile and more along the pilgrim high-
road, Karkh retained a considerable population even
after the remainder of West Baghdad had become
a complete ruin; indeed, it finally appears to have
given its name to the whole of the region which
continued to be habitable of this western side, for
down to the present day Karchiaka is what the

V.] The Kafah Highroad and Karkh Suburb 67

Turks call the more ancient quarter of Baghdad,
namely that which stands on the Arab side of the
Tigris.

Within the limits of Karkh (as laid out in the
time of Manser) was the Fief of Rabf, a plot of
gpround which had been granted to the favourite
chamberlain of the Caliph, and who, as just described,
had been commissioned to show the Greek envoy
over the new capital. The original fief must have
been of considerable extent, for it occupied all the
land near the BazzAzln and DajSj Canals, and it
extended from the line of the Khfah highroad
westward as far as the Karkhiyi Canal. It is stated
that the whole of this tract had, in former days, been
taken up by the arable lands of the ancient village
of Bayiwart (or Baniwart), which had stood here
before Baghdad was founded; while more to the
southward, and nearer the Tigris bank, had been
the lands of another ancient village of this neigh-
bourhood called Warthil (or WarthalS., according to
the spelling given by Khatib), which were afterwards
occupied in part by the Rabf Fief, and in part taken
up by the road of the subsequent market called the
Suwaykah Gh 4 lib. ■ When Mukaddasi wrote in the
year 375 (a.d. 985), the Fief of Rabl' is mentioned
as being already the most populous part of Karkh,
and even before a hundred years had elapsed since
the date of the foundation of the city, the fief had
become completely built over by the houses of the
merchants. This suburb afterwards came to be
divided into the Inner and the Outer Fief of Rabf;
and the Inner, it is said, had originally alone been
granted by Manshr to his chamberlain, while the
Outer Fief dated from a grant made by« the Caliph

F 2

68 Baghdad during the Caliphate

Mahdl to Fa^ the son of Rabi*, who served Mahdi
for a time as his Wazlr.

Immediately after passing the Karkh Gate and
entering the quarter, the highroad came to another
gate called the B4b-an-Nakhkhdsln, or Nah^iisin (for
the MSS. vary), signifying either the gate of the
slavedealers, or of the coppersmiths, and a square
lay beyond this, called the Rahbah Suwayd,
after one of the freedmen of Man§hr, who had
granted him a hef here. From this point onward
the market streets followed one after the other,
bordering the roadway on either hand, as far as the
utmost limit of Karkh beyond and to the south of
the 'tsfi Canal, where the great suburb at length
came to an end in the district known as the Shk-
ath-Thaldthcl, or the Tuesday Market of West
Baghdad ^

^ Ibn Serapion, 25 ; Mukaddasi, 120; Ya'kubi^ 245, 246; Kitab-al-
*Uyun, 265 ; Tabari, iii. 279, 323; Yakut, iv. 142, 245, 254, 919.
Khatib, folio-.83a, where the MSS. give Bandwaii, Nabdwari, and
other readings. See also Guztdah, under the reign of Caliph Wdthik,
for the fire in Karkh.

CHAPTER VI

THE CANALS OF KARKH

The Karkhiy^ and the Rufayl Canal. The Canal and its
Bridges. The Butchers’ and the Poulterers* Markets. The BazzILztn
and Dajij Canals, with the Quarters of the Soap-boilers and others.
The Fief and Canal of Dogs. The Shilntziyah Cemetery and its
shrines ; the Tiithah Suburb.

A SUMMARY account of the canals which traversed
Karkh has already been g^ven in chapter iv. It
will be remembered that the Karkh&y^l — ^from which
these were derived — was a great loop-canal taken
from the Nahr'lsi, a short distance below Muhawwal
Town, which in part discharged its waters back into
the 'Isd Canal by the two streams of the Nahr-al-
Kil4b and the Nahr T^bik. A moiety of the waters
of the KarkhAyl, however, were carried off above
this to the Tigris, either directly by the two channels
of the BazzAzln and Dajdj Canals, or indirectly, by
the Nahr Razin (otherwise the Canal of Abu *Att4b),
which joining the Sarit, poured its waters into the
Tigris at a point above the mouths of the Bazzizln
and Daj4j Canals.

The Karkhiyi Canal is said to have been dug at
the time of the foundation of Baghdad by 'Isi. (the
uncle of the Caliph Mansiir), he being then occupied
in building the famous mills at the junction of the

70 nagnaad during the Caliphate [ch.

Great $arit and the Little §arit, which will be
described in the sequel.

The Karkhiyi, below the Hospital Bridge (as
already said), was divided up into many channels,
and further we have seen that while in its upper,
single course, the KarkhdyA was a broad canal that
needed to be crossed by arched stone bridges (Kan-
tarah), the lower branch canals, with the channels of
the 'AmM and the Tibik (as the KarkhS.yi below
the Hospital Bridge came to be called), were evidently
mudi smaller watercourses, since no such bridges
were needed for the highroads to cross them. This
will perhaps explain why, before many centuries had
elapsed, most of these lower channels had fallen into
disuse, for being shallow they had easily become
silted up. At the time when Yikht wrote, namely
in the early part of the seventh century (the thir-
teenth A.D.), it is indeed asserted that no one then
could point out what had been the course originally
followed by the Karkhiyi Canal ; this statement,
however, the epitomist of Ydkht (the author of the
Mar&sid) denies, for writing a century kter than
Yikht, he affirms that the course of the old canal
still existed in his day, and that water flowed along
it, which was used for the irrigation of the neighbour-
ing fields. What, indeed, had by this date — a.h. 700
(a.d. 1300) — for the most part disappeared, were the
lower ramifications which in the earlier times had
traversed Karkh, as also the branch canal that had
formerly crossed the Sarit by the Old Bridge, and
flowed through the Harblyah beyond, to the north
of the Syrian Gatek

^ Ibn Serapion, 24 to 26 ; Yakut, iv. 252 ; Marasid, ii. 485 ; and
compare Plan, No. VII.

VI.]

The Canals of Karkh 71

The Nahr 'ls4, the parent stream from which the
5ardt and the Karkh4yi were both derived, was
one of the great navigable canals connecting the
Euphrates with the Tigpris, which (as has been
noticed in a former chapter) dated fi:om times long
antecedent to Islam, having been dug by one of the
Sassanian kings of Persia. I*t was by the Nahr *lsA
that Baghdad received the produce of the west and
provisions from the Euphrates lands. Great boats
and barges were loaded at Rakkah, ‘the port’ (as
it was called) of the Syrian desert on the Upper
Euphrates, there taking over from the land-caravans
the corn of Egypt and the merchandise from Damas-
cus, and these boats coming down the great river,
and then along the ‘ I ScL Canal, discharged their cargoes
at the wharves on the Tigris banks at the Lower
Harbour in Karkh.

The chronicles relate that at the time of the first
Arab conquest of Mesopotamia in the reign of the
Caliph 'Omar, one of the canals in this district had re"
ceived from the Moslems the name of the Nahr Rufayl,
after a certain Persian noble who had turned Moslem.
He, coming one day before'Omar in a robe of brocade
that trailed on the ground, the Caliph inquired as to
who was the little man ‘ in the trailing skirt ’ (in
Arabic Rufayl), and this nickname ever afterwards
clinging to him, the canal which he had owned came
likewise to be so called. This ancient Nahr Rufayl
was, according to one account, the lower part of the
*ts4 Canal — namely from the Thorn Bridge down
to the Lower Harbour — while, according to another
version, it was the upper reach of the Karkhdyal.
Whichever it may have been originally, the Nahr
Rufayl in later days had come to be rather a poetical

oagnaaa aurmg the Caliphate [ch.

name than one in common use, and it apparently fell
into desuetude as early even as the time when 'ls4
made the great navigablewaterway that tookhis name.
This Abbasid Prince *lsS, is stated by Ibn Serapion
(our earliest authority) to have been the nephew of
Manser, being the son of Mtisd his brother. Almost
all other authorities, however, assert that this *lsi
was the son of 'Ali, grandfather of that Caliph;
hence that it was the uncle of Mansftr who redug
the great canal. In the conflict of our authorities,
it may perhaps be surmised that both 'Isds had
a hand in the undertaking. Other buildings, how-
ever, dating from the early days of the foundation of
Baghdad and ascribed to Prince ‘Isd, all undoubtedly
have reference to 'Isi ibn ‘Alt, the uncle of Man§ur,
who held the governorship first of Medina and next
of Basrah, where he died during the Caliphate of
Mahdi his g^nd-nephew. 'Isi ibn MfisS, on the
other hand, the nephew of Mai^fir, was in turn
governor of AhwSz and of Kfifah, and at one time
he had been declared heir-apparent to the Caliphate.
It will be remembered how, at the time when Mansfir
was- engaged in the building of Baghdad, this 'IsS,
was dispatched in command of the Abbasid forces
against the two 'Alid pretenders, Muhammad and
Ibrihlm — the grandsons of the Caliph I^asan — ^who
had raised the standard of revolt. ‘IsS. ibn Mfisd
defeated the rebels and returned in triumph ; but at a
later date he was ousted from his rights to the succes-
sion by Man§(ir, who proclaimed his own son, Mahdi,
heir-apparent, and 'Isi ibn Misi subsequently died
at his governorship of Kfifah*.

\ Yakut, iv. 117, 190, 839 ; Marasid, iii. 247 ; Ibn Kutaybah, 190, 192.
Of later authorities the only writer who states the digger of the great

73

VI.] The Canals of Karkh

The 'Isi Canal left the Euphrates just below the
town of Anbdr, and passing under the great arched
bridge called JKantarah DimmimS., flowed eastward
till it came to the township of Muhawwal, which lay
about a league distant from the suburbs of the Round
City. It will be remembered that a short distance
before the Nahr *lsi reached Muhawwal, the $arit
Canal — ^which likewise dated from Sassanian times —
branched from it to the left, while equally a short
distance below Muhawwal the Karkhiyd (already
described) flowed off also to the left hand. Istakhri
particularly notes that while barges could pass freely
down the 'ls4 Canal all the way from the Euphrates
to the Tigris, the $ardt, on account of its weirs, dams,
and water-wheels, was not navigable for large boats.
The word Muhawwal signifies a place where bales
are ‘unloaded,’ and the town appears to have received
this name from the unloading of the river barges
which took place here, when the cargoes were carried
over to the small skiffs that plied on the Sarflt and
Karkhflyi in the reaches between the weirs. F urther,
it would appear that the waters of the Karkh&y4 and
its subsidiary canals were kept, by these weirs, to a
higher level than the stream that flowed down the
$arit, for, as we have already seen, a branch from
the Karkhiyd was carried across, above the $arSt,
by the arches of the Old Bridge, passing thence to

canal to have been ’Isi ibn is Namd-AUah, the Persian author
of the eighth century (the fourteenth a.D.) : he however in another
passage speaks of the canal as that of ’tsU ibn Maryam, in other
words, of Jesus son of Mary, this apparently being the popular
Persian ascription of his time. Hamd-Allah is, of course, no authority
in this matter, and he further makes a mistake in stating that this
Mflsi (the father of '!si) was uncle to the Caliph Manffir, he in fact
having been his brother. See Nurhat, 148, 164.

74 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

the northward into the Harbtyah Quarter. It is
especially mentioned by early writers that the waters
of the Nahr 'ls4 never failed, nor was its channel
liable to become silted up. They describe it as
flowing in a fine stream through the midst of the
city, reaching the Tig^s at the Lower Harbour,
which, as will be shown later, must have been situated
immediately below the later, single, bridge of boats,
the position of which very nearly corresponded with
the present pontoon bridge of modern Baghdad^.

On the line between Muhawwal Town and the
Tigris bank, the waterway of, the Nahr *lslL vra-S
crossed by ten arched bridges, the great KMah high-
road probably passing over it by that known as the
Thorn Bridge {!^antarah-ash-Shawk), which spanned
the canal immediately above where the Nahr-al-
Kildb (or Dogs’ Canal from the Karkhiyd) flowed
in. Below this there were five bridges across the
‘Isd Canal before it reached the Lower Harbour on
the Tigris, and above the Thom Bridge, four, the
highest up being the Kantarah Yisiriyah. This
bridge took its name from the Ydsirtyah Quarter,
which, as will be seen later, was reckoned the
westernmost of Baghdad along the Muhawwal road;
it was surrounded by fine ^rdens, and lay on the
canal bank, one mile below the town of Muhawwal,
and two miles (according to Ydkfit) distant from
Old Baghdad. The bridge below this was the Kan-
tarah-az-Za 3 ^dtln, the Bridge of the Oil-merchants ;

* Compare Plan No. Ill with No. VII. In the sketch-plan of
Baghdad given in my paper on Ibn Serapion (/. R. A. S,, 1895,
facing p. 275), the whole western quarter is put too low down in
regard to the eastern; and the course of the Nahr 'Isd should be as
shown in the accompanying maps.

VI.]

The Canals of Karkh

75

the next was the I^anfarah-al-Ushnin, the Alkali
Bridge, the word Ushndn being explained as the
stuff used for washing clothes, and which was sold
at the market adjacent to the bridge.

The Kantarah-ash-Shawk (already mentioned)
came next, at the Market of the Thorn-sellers, Skawk
being the thorns used for kindling ovens and heating
the Hammdms or hot baths; and near here lived the
clothes-merchants and hucksters. Below this, on the
canal, and therefore probably between the great
Kiifah highroad and the river bank, came the !l^an-
tarah-ar-Rummdn, where pomegranates (from which
it took its name) were sold ; then the Kantarah-al-
Maghld — ^where the mills stood — near the spot called
Maghld, meaning ‘ the place which lacks water,’ and
after this came the Garden Bridge, Ranjarah-al-
Bustin. The two lowest bridges on the 'ts 4 Canal
were the Kantarah-al-Ma'badt and the Kantarah-
Bani-Zurayk. The first of these took its name from
a . certain ‘A bd- Allah ibn Muhammad al Ma'badi^,
who, possessing fiefs here, built for himself a palace
{Ddr) and a mill, also this bridge over the great
canal, these all being called after his name. When
Al Ma'badt flourished is not stated, but it must have
been in the early days of the Abbasids, before the
reign of the Caliph Mu'tasim, since we learn that all
his lands subsequently passed into the possession of
the celebrated Muhammad- az-Zayy^lt, who was
Wazir of that Caliph between the years 218 and 227
(a.d. 833 to 842). The lowest of the bridges, and
that over which must have passed the highroad
coming down from the Basrah Gate, was called after

^ This is almost certainly the right spelling : some MSS* give the
reading Mctfdf^ as is printed in the Marasid^ iii* 249.

76 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

the Bani Zuray^, a family of architects, of Persian
origin, and this bridge was built of marble.

The preceding enumeration of the ten bridges
over the Nahr *Isi is taken from the description of
this canal written by Ibn Serapion at the beginning
of the fourth century (the tenth a.d.). Yfikht, who
copies all this, adds that originally at each of these
bridges a market had been held, but that in his day,
namely at the beginning of the seventh century (the
thirteenth a.d.), through the ruin of Karkh and the
transference of its population in greater part to East
Baghdad, all this region had come to be deserted,
and of these ten bridges over the Nahr ‘Isd only
two then remained standing, namely that of the
Oil -merchants (Kantarah-az-Za3^itin) and the
Garden Bridge (Kantarah-al-Bustcln), also known as
the Bridge of the Traditionists (Kantarah-al-Mu-
haddithin). The author of the Mardsid, however,
writing about the year 700 (a.d. 1300), and three-
quarters of a century after Ycl^ht, contradicts most
of this statement, asserting that both the bridges
which his predecessor mentions as still standing must
have gone to ruin already long before his time,
seeing that the only ones remaining when he (the
author of the Marddd) wrote were three : namely,
the Yisiriyah Bridge, lately rebuilt by a certain Sa'id,
the Thorn Bridge, and that of tlie Bant Zurayk; — in
other words the bridges crossed respectively by the
two highroads southward, from the Basrah and the
Khfah Gates, and the uppermost bridge of all, where
the Yelsirtyah road crossed the 'ts^ Ganal, turning off
due west from the Muhawwal highroad

^ Yalmbi, 250 ; Ibn Serapion, 14 ; Istakhri, 83 ; and Ibn Hawkal,
164 ; Yakut, i. 284 ; iv. 191, 842, 843, 1002 ; Marasid, iii. 249, 2sa

The Canals of Karkk

77

viO

Returning once more to the description of Karkh
after this digression on its canals, it will be remem-
bered that while Inner Karkh occupied the land
between the Sarit and *lsi Canals, Outer Karkh lay
to the south of this last ; most of the bridges above
named thus affording communication between Inner
and Outer Karkh in the line of its breadth, while in
its length Karkh extended along both sides of the
great pilgrim highroad southward. The upper part
of Karkh was inhabited by the Khurisdn merchants
who traded in stuffs (Bazzdzln), and these gave their
name to the first of the canals (the Nahr-al-Bazzflzln)
which crossed Inner Karkh, flowing off from the
Karkhiyl Taken likewise from the Karkhiyi was
the Nahr-ad-Dajij (the Fowls’ Canal), so called
because the poulterers had their stalls on its banks ;
and both the Bazz^zln and Dajij Canals flowed out
directly into the Tigris, their lower reaches passing
through the SharWyah or Eastern Suburb, which
will be described presently. At the beginning of
the fourth century (the tenth a.d.) when Ibn Serapion
wrote, the BazzSzln Canal, near the Market of the
Clothes-merchants, passed a street which ran to the
westward of the Karkh Gate, and probably led into
the Rabi* Fief; this was called the Road of the
Painter (Shiri -al-Musawwir), and in it was the house
(Ddr) of Ka'b. Next to the Market of the Clothes-
merchants, but lower down the canal, and probably
to the eastward of the Karkh Gate, was the Market
of the Cobblers or of the Butchers (for the MS. of
Ibn Serapion by the addition of the diacritical points,
which are lacking, may read either Kharrd^n or
y azzdr£n), the latter being the more probable reading,
since Khatfb tells us that the Caliph Man$fir, when

78 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

laying out Karkh, set the butchers to dwell in the
outermost part, ‘since they be shedders of blood,
and have ever sharp iron in their hands,’ and this
would have been in early days the outer part of
Karkh. Further down along the Bazzdzin Canal
came the quarter of the soap-boilers ; and the various
other markets on the lower canals doubtless here
formed lines of streets, with shops on either hand,
which led to one or other of the bridges (already
mentioned) crossing the Nahr *tsd into Outer
Karkh.

On the section of the Karkhiyi, or 'Amlid as it
was here called, between the two canals of the
Clothes-merchants and the Poulterers, opened the
Quadrangle of the Oil-merchant (Murabba'at-az-
Zayyit), this probably lying adjacent to the Oil-
merchants’ Bridge over the Nahr 'Isi, already
described. Below here the Poulterers’ Canal turned
off, and on its course to the Tigris traversed a number
of other quarters and markets, namely those in-
habited by the canal-diggers and the reed-weavers,
beyond which lay the Street of the Pitch-workers and
the Market of the Sellers of Cooked Meats. The
Karkhiyi Canal meanwhile, after passing a place
known by the curious name of the Mound of the
Ass (Dawwirat-al-Idimar), sent off its single branch
to the right, called the Nahr-al-Kilib, or the Dogs’
Canal, which flowed out directly into the Nahr ‘Isel,
just below the Thorn Bridge. On the banks of the
Dogs’ Canal lay the Fief of the Dogs (Kati‘at-al-
Kilib), and it is said this was so named in jest by
the Caliph MansOr, from the number of dogs that
lived here^.

* Ibn Serapion, 26; Khatib, folios 76 a, 83 b.

VI.] The Canals of Karkh 79

Across the ‘is^ Canal, immediately beyond the
Thorn Bridge, came the cemetery called the Great
Shfinizlyah and lower down this probably occupied
both banks of the Nahr 'Isi, for it is spoken of as
lying adjacent to the Kalliyln and TAbik Canals;
beyond was the suburb on the Nahr ‘IsA, called
At-Ththah. In the thirteenth century a.d., Yil^ftt
speaks of a KhAnkah, or Shfl convent, which existed
here in his time, also the tomb, covered with blue
tiles, of a well-known saint called Al-'AbbAdi, who
had died in 547 (a.d. 1152). In the Persian history
called the Guztdah^ it is mentioned that in the time
of the Caliph Mustadi (who reigned from 566 to 575,
A.D. 1 1 70 to II 80) one of his slave women, called
Banafsah (Violet), who was renowned for her gene-
rosity, had built, or restored, a bridge near the
ShAnlziyah Quarter (probably the Thorn Bridge),
and founded this KhAnkah or convent. The ceme-
tery further possessed many other celebrated tombs,
among the rest that of the SAft saint Sirri, or Sari-as-
Sakati (the dealer in old clothes), who died about the
year 256 (a.d. 870), having been the disciple of
Ma'rAf-al-Karkhi, whose shrine will be mentioned in
a following chapter.

In the thirteenth century a. d. (according to YAkAt),
At-TAthah was still, a populous suburb, though
standing solitary like a village apart, opposite the
Thorn Bridge. Ibn KhallikAn, who wrote in the
same century, also speaks of the tomb of Sakati
as being in his day a conspicuous and well-known
object standing close beside the grave of the cele-
brated SAfi ascetic Al-J unayd, who was the nephew

' The Lesser Shhniztyah, as will be mentioned below, was the name
given to the cemetery lying round the KS?imayn Shrine.

8o Baghdad during the Caliphate

of Sakati on the sister’s side. At the present time,
however, all trace of these shrines has apparently
vanished, though as late as the middle of the four-
teenth century a.d., when Idamd-Allah wrote, the
tombs of Junayd and of Sarl-as-Salfati were still
objects of veneration in Baghdad^.

1 Yakut, i. 889 ; iii. 338, 599 ; iv. 843 ; Khatib, folio 113a; Guadah,
reign of Caliph Mustadi, and Nuzhat, 149; Ibn Kballikan, No. 25 Sj
p.6s.

CHAPTER VII

THE QUARTERS OF THE LOWER HARBOUR

The Tibik and Kall^yin Canals. Chickpea Broth. The Monastery
of the Virgins. The Street of Kiln-burnt Bricks and the Cotton House.
The Melon House, or Fruit Market, and the Myrtle Wharf. The
Lower Harbour. The Palace of *!si and the Kasr *tsi Quarter.
The later Bridge of Boats. The Kurayyah Quarter. The Highroad
of the Basrah Gate. The Sharkiyah Quarter and the 'Attkah. The
Harrini Archway. The Palace and Fief of Wadd^h. The Book-
sellers’ Market and the New Bridge.

The Karkhiyi Canal, after passing the place
known as the Mound of the Ass, took the name
of the Nahr Tdbik (or T4bak), and began to curve
round to the eastward and north-east in its final
reach before flowing out into the *lsd Canal, not
very far above where this last itself joined the
Tigris. Before the Karkhiyd, however,' changed
its name to Tibik, a branch was taken from its left
bank at a place known as the Quadrangle of §dlih.
This branch or loop canal was the Nahr-al-Kalldytn,
so called from the shops of those who sold fried
meats, and after passing a place named As-Saw-
wdkin — from the sellers of parched-pea broth called
Sawtk — the IjHalliyin Canal flowed round to join the
Poulterers’ Canal (or Nahr Dajij, already described)
in the quarter of the reed-weavers.

G

BAGHDAD

82

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

The Sawik, from which the Sawwikin took their
name, forms the subject of a curious note by Khatib.
He relates that Sawik-al-HimmSs — a broth or ptisan
of chickpeas — was about the year 360 (a.d. 970)
sold in great quantities throughout the markets of
Baghdad, a certain cookman making it after a
special receipt, and giving it an uncommon name,
though what the name was Khatib had forgotten.
This man, in the beginning of each year, was wont
to import for the demands of his business the im-
mense quantity of 280 Kurrs — a dry measure, each
Kurr equivalent to six ass-loads — of the chickpeas
called Himmis, and at the close of the season he
would have none left in store, so that for the next
year a like quantity had to be obtained. This broth
of parched peas was more especially the food eaten
by the poor in Baghdad during the two or three
months when no fresh fruit was to be obtained;
it was not, however, very savoury, and many could
not stomach it In time the dish went completely
out of fashion, and Khatib remarks that in his day —
about the year 450 (a.d. 1058) — the broth had come
to be no longer in demand, so little so that, as he
adds, ‘were a single Maktik (half-bushel) of these
chickpeas to be sought for now, in both East and
West Baghdcld, this small quantity could hardly be
obtained,’

One of the many churches of the Nestorians in
Baghdad appears to have been situated near this
■market where the chickpea broth had been sold;
for YS.kut writes that in the space between the
Nahr-ad-Dajaj (the Poulterers’ Canal) and the Nahr
Tdbik was the KatPat-an-Nasar& (the Fief of the
Chrislians), where stood the Monastery of the Virgins

vn.] The Quarters of the Lower Harbour 83

(Dayr-al-'Adhdri). It was, he reports, a magnificent
shrine, and here the Christians in Baghdad were
wont to celebrate the Holy Communion at the
conclusion of the three days’ Lesser Fast, called
the Fast of the Virgins, which preceded their Great
Fast, by which presumably Lent is to be understood ^
The quarter of the Nahr-al-?Iall^lytn occupied
part of the ground where, as has already been
mentioned, in earlier days had stood the village
of Warthell; and Yikfit adds that in the seventh
century (the thirteenth a.d.) this canal had by that
date come to mark the southernmost limit of Karkh,
so much had the great suburb then shrunk in extent
from the six-mile length of when it had been first
laid out. The Nahr TT^bik, as already explained, ,'was
the designation of the last reach of the KarkMyH
before it flowed out to the ‘tssL Canal. The name
is given by 'J'S’had as the Nahr T4bik:-al-Kisrawt
(Tdbik of the Chosroes), being originally the canal
of the Sassanian Pllpak (or Bdbak), son of Bahrim,
son of Bibak, who had first dug it and founded a
palace* on the site where the I^a§r 'Isi ibn ‘All
afterwards stood. Ya'kfibi, however, declares that
the canal took its name from a certain X^hak-ibn-
$amyah. Y§.kfit, who in part copies his predecessors,
seems to imagine that this word T^ba^ or X^hik:
was merely a variant for Bibak ; but adds that in his
opinion the name of the canal was really derived,
not from a man, but from the great tiles called
TAbak made on its banks, which were in use through-
out Baghdad for paving the houses. Since the year

(

^ Yakut, ii. 680; iv. 143 ; Khatib, folio iiob. :

® The word used is *Akr, which Yakut (iii. 695) explains to mean
a castle (I^sr) to which the villagers may flee for safety**

G 2

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

488 (a. D. 1095), YikAt continues, the quarter of
the Canal had become an area of rubbish

mounds, the result of a conflagration following on
the riots which had broken out between the people
of this quarter — who were Sunnis — and tliose of the
neighbouring Bdb-al-Arhd (the Gate of the Mills),
near , the Maghid Bridge over the ‘Isd Canal, who
•were Shi'ahs. The same authority states that on
the Tllbik Canal were also two minor quarters,
namely that of the Darb-al-Ajurr (the Street of
Kiln-burnt Bricks), which was a ruin at the time
when Yikflt wrote (thirteenth century A.D.), and the
D&r-al-Kutn (the Cotton House), which is elsewhere
spoken of as lying between the *lsd Canal and
Karkh ^

Near where the Tabik Canal joined the Nahr

^ Ibn Serapion, 26; Ya'kubi, 250; Tabari, iii. 280; Yakut, i. 58;
ii. 517, 523 ; iii. 486 ; iv. 254, 838, 841, 843 ; Marasid, iii. 249 ; Ibn-al-
Athir, X. 162, gives the year of the insurrection as A.H. 487, and the
Bib-al-Arji mentioned in this passage is apparently a mistake for
BI,b-al-ArhlL, namely the quarter of the Gate of the Mills.

The account which Yakut, iv. 255, gives of the relative positions of
Karkh and the surrounding suburbs is in complete contradiction with
all that is known from other sources, and inconsistent with many other
passages in his own works. Hence either the MSS. are here corrupt
or he, writing from memory at Merv, had forgotten how the points of
the compass lay. Thus he says that the Sarit Canal ran on the Kiblah
or south-west side of Karkh, while the quarter of the Basrah Gate lay to
the south-east. Further, he puts the quarter of the Nahr-al-KaMyin
to the south of Karkh, and to the south-west of it (he says) was the
quarter of the Muhawwal Gate ; while to the eastward of Karkh lay
the boundaries of Baghdad and the other great quarters of the
western city. Again, while in one passage (iv. 84r) he states that
the Tibik Canal lay to the easr of the Kallllyin, in another article
(iv. 843) the Tdbik is described as flowing to the south of the
Kall^yin, having the Shuniztyah Cemetery on its western side. Some
confusion evidently must have existed as to the relative positions of
these canals, for Khatib states (folio 25 b of the Paris MS.) that he
had been told on good authority, in 450 A.H., that the Nahr-aI-Kall 4 yin
flqwed out into the Tigris below the Fardah or Lower Harbour.

vii.] The Quarters of the Lower Harbour 85

'Isi was the building known as the Melon House
(Ddr-al-Battikh), a name commonly given to the
town fruit-markets; and to this spot these mar-
kets, which had been kept within the Round City
by the Caliph Man§Ar, were finally removed during
the reign of Mah<h. The actual point of junction
of the Tibik with the ‘IsS Canal was marked by
a place known as the Myrtle Wharf (Mashra'at-
al-As), which doubtless formed the northern strand
of the Fardah, or Lower Harbour, where the *lsi
Canal disembogued into the Tigris. This, as already
said, was the Port of Karkh, and in early days it
lay in the very midst of West Baghdad, where (as
Ibn Hawkal writes) the ships from the Euphrates
were moored to discharge their cargoes, all along
the harbour side standing the warehouses of the
merchants, with many great markets near^.

This Lower Harbour — as we have named it to
distinguish it from the Upper Harbour at the mouth
of the T4hir Trench — ^was known as the Fardah
of Ja'far, son of the Caliph Manshr, and to him his
father had granted the lands here in fief. On its
upper strand and near the Tigris bank was the
Kasr ‘tsi, the palace that gave its name to the sur-
rounding quarter, and which is commonly stated to
have been built by that Abbasid prince 'ls4 (whether
uncle or nephew of the Caliph Mansfir is uncertain) ®
who dug the *ls4 Canal. By another account, how-

* Ibn Serapion, 28; F^hri, 299; Ibn Hawkal, 165.. I translate
Mashrdah by ^ wharf/ tentatively ; it may signify ‘ford* or ‘passage,*
but in the modern dialect of Baghdad the cognate term Short ah
means ‘wharf,* and is in frequent use (see Jones, 312) ; further, this
signification appears to suit the context where the word Mashrdah
occurs in Tabari and other early authorities.

* See above, p. 72.

86

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

ever, this Kasr took its name from *lsd, son of
Ja'far, after whom the harbour was called, hence
a grandson of Manshr; and this ‘Isi is stated to
have had a brother called Ja'far, after his father,
and he had owned the neighbouring palace called
the Dir Ja'far. On the other hand Yikit, who
quotes a long anecdote in illustration of the well-
known avarice of the Caliph Manshr, showing how
' he once tried to inveigle his kinsman into giving
up his palace, states that it was built by Prince 'tsi,
son of 'Ali (that is to say the uncle of the Caliph
Mansir), who Yikit asserts dug the 'Isi Canal.
This he adds was the first palace (l^asr) which any
Abbasid prince built in Baghdad; and it stood on
the upper strand of the Rufayl Canal, otherwise
called the Nahr 'tsfi, where this last joined the
Tigris, aijid Jon the further side this palace over-
looked the river. It apparently had the good
fortune to escape the destruction which overtook
so many of the houses in this quarter during the
two great sieges of Baghdad (in the reigpis respec-
tively of Amin and Musta'ln), for the Continuator
of Tabari mentions that the maternal uncle of the
Caliph Muktadir, named Gharlb (or Ghurayb) — ^who
died in 305 (a.d. 917) — was buried in the Kasr *lsi.
Apparently lying opposite to this palace there was,
at about the same period, an island in the Tigris
stream, for in the year 313 (a. d. 925) the Wazir
of the Caliph Muktadir, Ahmad Ibn-al“Kha§ib, was
molested by arrows shot at him while riding up to
the Ka?r 'Isd, by some insurgent troops who had
landed on this island.

As late as the beginning of the seventh century
(the thirteenth a.d.), in the time of Yiktlt, the

VII.] The Quarters of the Lower Harbour 87

populous suburb and markets known as the quarter
of the Kasr 'Isi still existed, though the palace
itself had long since entirely disappeared. The
quarter was celebrated for the mosque called the
Jimi* of Ibn-al-Muttalib, and it was probably in
the neighbourhood of this mosque that the tomb
of the Caliph Mustadl, who died in 575 (a.d, 1180),
had been erected. The Caliphs for the most part
were buried at Ru§ifah (as will be described later) ;
but the chronicle specially states that this Caliph
was buried ‘in a tomb- apart outside the quarter
of the Ka§r 'ls 4 in Western Baghdad.’

From a topographical point of view, the Kasr ‘ts 4
with its surrounding quarter, lying on the Tigris
immediately above the harbour where the 'Isi Canal
flowed out, is a position of much importance, for
Yiktit informs us that the Bridge of Boats in his
day, which crossed the Tigris to the palaces of the
Caliphs, began ‘ in front of the Kasr 'tsi Quarter.’
The precise epoch when this bridge was first laid
down is not known, but it can only date, at the
earliest, from- the latter half of the fifth century (the
eleventh a.d.), and the first notice of it occurs under
the year 568 (a.d. 1173), as will be shown in a later
chapter. This bridge, the position of which Ydl^fit
describes, is the same of which Ibn Jubayr speaks,
who visited Baghdad in 580 (a.d. 1184), as lying
immediately above the Kurayyah Quarter; and
there seems no reason to doubt that in position it
represents the Bridge of Boats of the present day.
On the other hand, as will be seen in the' sequel,
it cannot be identified with any one of the three
bridges (upper, main, or lower) which existed from
the time of the Caliph Manigfir till the middle of the

88

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

fourth century (the tenth a.d.), when the Buyid
princes became masters of Baghdad, for the lowest
of these must have crossed the Tigris considerably
above the mouth of the harbour and to a point
within, or above, the gate of the Tuesday Market
in the wall of the Mukharrim Quarter of Eastern
Baghdad ^

On the south side of the harbour, and stretching
from here for a considerable distance along the
Tigris bank, was the quarter called Al-]^urayyah
(the Little Village). This must have been one of the
latest built of the outlying suburbs, for it is mentioned
neither by I bn Serapion nor by Ya'l^Abl, and it
probably only came into existence about the middle
of the fifth century (the eleventh a.d.), during the
earlier years of the Saljfik supremacy, when the
suburbs of both East and West Baghdad were
considerably enlarged, and the Nizimiyah College
came to be built on the eastern river bank, im-
mediately opposite to the l^urayyah on the western
side. I bn Jubayr, who visited Baghdad in 580
(a.d. 1184), found the i^urayyah to be the largest
of the quarters of West Baghdad. He lodged here
on his first arrival, ‘ in a district thereof that is called
Al-Murabba‘ah (or the Quadrangle), lying on the
bank of the Tigris, very near to the Bridge of Boats.’
Ydkfit describes this same suburb in the year 623
(a.d. 1226) as like a town apart, having its separate
Friday mosque and numerous markets; while across
the river opposite the Kurayyah was the wharf at
the market of the Nizimlyah College. The com-

' Tabari, iii. 280 ; *Arib, 69, 127 ; Va'kubi, 245, 250; Yakuts ii. 484;
iv. 117, 839; Mushtarik, 350; Ibn Jubayr, 226; and compare Pkn
No. VII with No. III.

vii.] The Quarters of the Lower Harbour 89

manding position of this suburb made it a point of
importance when half a century later, in the year
656 (a.0 - 1258), the Mongols laid siege to Baghdad;
and the chronicles state that Hhldgh then ordered
the chief part of his army that was sent across to
besiege Baghdad from the west side to pitch their
siege camp ‘over against Al-Kurayyah, which lies
opposite the palaces of the Caliphs/ This incident,
however, will be more fully discussed at a later page,
when we come to deal with the events of the last
g^eat siege.

From another passage in Ydkht it would further
appear that the j^urayyah Quarter must also have
stretched across and to the north of the 'Isi Canal
along its left bank ; for part of the I^urayyah is de-
scribed as occupying ground between the canal and
the KutuM suburb at the Ba§rah Gate, at the time
when all these quarters suffered damage by a great
inundation of the Tigris in the year 614 (a. d. 1217)'.

The j^urayyah was the lowest, downstream, of the
suburbs of Karkh which lay on the Tigris bank, and
it communicated directly with the City of Man^ftr
by the highroad of the Basrah Gate. In its lower
portion this thoroughfare on leaving the If urayyah
passed, on the right, the quarter of the Kasr *lsi
(already described), immediately after crossing the
'ls 4 Canal by the Bani Zurayk Bridge, and froni
the highroad at this point must have diverged the

^ Ibn Jubayr, 226; Yakut, iv. 8$, 137; Mushtarik, 344; Chronicle
of Abu-l-Fida, iv. 552; Ibn-al-Athir, xii. 217. In the edition by
W, Wright of Ibn Jubayr, the name of Al-Kurayyah is given without
points and is misprinted. There can be no doubt, however, as to the
true reading, for the passage is copied by Sharisht in his Commentary
on Hariri^ i, 216. For this reference I am indebted to Professor
De Goeje.

90

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

street to the (later) Bridge of Boats, mentioned by I bn
Jubayr and YdkAt. Further up, and before reaching
the yarrini Arch, the Ba§rah Gate highroad skirted
the quarter called the Sharktyah, which lay between
it and the Tigris, immediately above the quarter
of the Kasr 'tsi ; and part of the Sharktyah Quarter,
namely that portion more immediately on the river
bank, bore the name of an older suburb known as
Al-'Atikah.

The Sharktyah, meaning ‘ the Eastern Quarter ’
(and not to be confounded with Eastern Baghdad
on the further side of the Tigris), was so called
from its position to the eastward of the City of
Manshr. Originally it had its special Friday mosque,
and a Kidt or judge appointed to settle the dis-
putes of the people in the Karkh markets ; but this
Friday mosque was afterwards disestablished. The
‘Attkah, meaning ‘ the ancient ’ suburb, is described
as situated between the Harrinl Arch and the
Barley Gate, on the land contiguous to the river
bank. It was also known as the Ancient Market,
(As-Shk-al-'Atlkah), and before Baghdad was built
a village had existed here that went by the name
of Shndy4, the black grapes from its vineyards
being very celebrated. In later times a shrine
dedicated to the Caliph ‘All, and much frequented
by the Shl'ahs, stood in this quarter, being known
as the Mashhad-al-Mintakah (the Shrine of the
Girdle), probably from some relic here preserved.
The Shi*ahs asserted that ‘All had prayed at this
shrine, a fact mentioned as doubtful by Khatlb, and
when Yikht wrote in the beginning of the seventh
century (the thirteenth A.D.), this shrine had already
disappeared.

VII.] The Quarters of the Lower Harbour 91

The Sharkiyah Quarter must have been traversed
by the lower reaches of both the Bazzizin and Dajij
Canals, already described. The latter of the two,
after passing the Street of the Pitch-workers, flowed
out to the Tigris among the Cookmen’s Quarter;
while the Bazzizln Canal had its exit immediately
below the building known as the Nut-house (Dir-
al-Jawz), after passing through the Soap-boilers’
Quarter \

On the highroad coming down from the Basrah
Gate, the upper limit of the Sharlflyah Quarter was
at the archway of the Harr^lnian (T^t-al-I5arrini).
This archway stood between the lowest part of the
Abu-'Att4b Canal — immediately above where its
waters flowed out into the $arit — and the lower
reach of the Nahr Bazzizin, spanning the roadway
where it crossed a plot of ground that had been
included in the limits of the ancient village of
Warthal, which, as already mentioned, had existed
here before Baghdad was founded. According to
one authority the arch was built by a man of HarrSn
in Upper Mesopotamia, named Ibrihtm, son of
Dhakwdn, once the freedman of the Caliph Mansiir,
and who, becoming in later times a chief favourite
of the Caliph Hddi, had served him at the close
of his short reign in the capacity of Wazlr. Ya'l^Abi
on the other hand states that the I^arrdnian who
built the archway, and had his fief here, was not
Ibrihim, but a certain 'Amr ibn Sim‘an®.

Between the yarriinl Archway and the New
Bridge over the Sarit Canal at the Baijrah Gate

^ See Plan, No. H.

® Ya*kubi, 245 ; Khatib, folios 76 a, 84 b ; Yakut, iii. 197, 4^% -

613 ; Marasid, ii. 70; Ibn Serapion, 25, 26.

92 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

the highroad traversed the parcel of land originally
granted in fief to Waddih by the Caliph Man§Ar.
Wadddh was a native of Anbir and freedman of
the Caliph ; he had been one of the superintendents
appointed for the building of the Round City, and
he was afterwards chief of the armoury. His palace,
known as the Kasr Wa<Jdih, with the adjoining
mosque, at one time gave its name to this part
of Karkh, of which great suburb, further, he drew
the ground plan by order of the Caliph, being also
made superintendent of the funds set apart for the
building of the neighbouring Sharkiyah Quarter.
At a somewhat later date, this palace in the fief
or suburb (Kati'ah or Rabad, as it was indifferently
called) of Waddih was, for a time, the residence
of Mahdl, the heir-apparent, while the Caliph Mansdr,
his father, was completing the Rusdfah Quarter and
the new Palace of Mahdt across the river.

From the f^arrinl Archway up to the New Bridge
over the §arcLt Canal both sides of the roadway
were occupied by the shops of the papersellers and
booksellers, whose market was in this quarter, as
also on the bridge itself; and this market was
called after them the Sfik-al'Warr^kln, more than
one hundred booksellers’ shops being found here.

It is said that the New Bridge (Al-ICantarah al-
Jadidah or Al-Hadithah) took this name from the
fact that it was the last of those built by the Caliph
Manshr over the §ardt Canal; and Ydk^lt, while
remarking that in his day (thirteenth century a.d.)
it was no longer entitled to its designation of new,
says that though it had been many times restored,
it had now come to be a complete ruin. It must
indeed have been rebuilt after the first siege

VII.] The Quarters of the Lower Harbour 93

of Baghdad, that of the Caliph Amin in 198 (a.d.
814), when both this New Bridge opposite the
Basrah Gate and the Old Bridge (already described)
higher up the Sarit, at the foot of the square
opposite the KAfah Gate, were destroyed. On this
occasion after occupying the Sharkiyah Quarter and
the line of the Sarit Canal, Tdhir, the general of
Mamlln’s troops, forced Amin to retreat within the
City of MansAr, and stubborn fighting took place
round the Palace of WadclSh, and again at the
Karkh Gate, before the partisans of Amin were
finally driven inh

^ Ya'kubi, 245 ; Baladhuri, 295 ; Tabari, iii. 906 ; Yakut, iv. 1 23,

CHAPTER VIII

THE QUARTER OF THE BASRAH GATE

The Lower Bridge of Boats and the Barley Gate. The Palace of
^umayd. The Kutufti Quarter and the Palace of *Adud-ad-Dtn.
The Tustariytn. Later Baisrah Gate Quarter. The Shrine of Ma'rdf
KarkM and the Old Monastery of the Sarit Point. The Convent of
the Foxes. The Khuld Palace and the KanSr. The Great *Adudt
Hospital The Review Ground and the Stables of the Caliph.

The name of Sharki57ah, to denote the suburb
beyond the Ba§rah Gate, appears to have gone out
of use during the course of the third century (the
ninth a. d.) ; probably because this same name Shar-
klyah, meaning the Eastern Quarter, had come more
and more to be used exclusively for East Baghdad,
across the Tigris, to which, after the return of the
Caliphs from Sdmarri in 279 (a.d. 892), the seat of
government had finally been transferred. The area
of this Sharklyah of the Basrah Gate was, in later
times, occupied by the Quarter of the Tustarlyin,
and that called E^utufti, within which also a part of
the suburb of the 'Isd was included ; for this
latter suburb had originally gone all along the
Tigris bank from the mouth of the *ls4 Canal to the
mouth of the $arit, where it met the lower part of
the gardens of the Khuld Palace.

The Quarter of the Basrah Gate 95

At this point was moored the Lower Bridge of
Boats, which from the time of Man§hr till the middle
of the fifth century (the' eleventh a.d.) connected the
quarters of West Baghdad outside the Ba§rah Gate
with the Tuesday Market within, or above, the gate
of that name in the city wall of the Mukharrim
Quarter in East Baghdad. This bridge of boats,
with others, will be more particularly noticed in a
later chapter ; it is spoken of by Ya'khbi under the
name of the 'First (or Lowest) Bridge (Al-Ji§r-al-
Awwal), and near its western end must have stood
the Barley Gate, and subsequently the Palace of
Humayd. The exact position of the Barley Gate
(B4b-ash-Sha*lr) is not easy to fix, but it appears to
have shut off the lower part of the branch road
called the Darb-ash-Sha‘lr (the Barley Street), lead-
ing from the Idarr&ni Archway to this Lower Bridge,
which last is described as having been first moored
across the Tigris by the Caliph Mansfir when he was
building the Khuld Palace in the year 157 (a.d. 774)
‘ at the Barley Gate.’ Further, it is stated that some
of the markets were set near this Barley Gate when
these came to be removed from within the Round
City to the suburbs of Karkh ; and the Rayasinah
Fief (as already mentioned) is described as lying
between this gate and the Mosque of Ibn Raghbdn.
The chronicles also frequently mention this Quarter
of the Bib-ash-Sha*ir in connexion with Karkh, the
Kalliyin, and other neighbouring suburbs, as for
example on the occasion of the insurrections which
broke out and devastated the greater part of Western
Baghdad in the years 406, 422, and 447 (a.d. 1015,
1031, and 1055); and Yikht refers to the Barley
Gate as standing near the 'Atikah suburb (which has

g6 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

been already described), near the Mintakah Mosque
and not far from the Tdk-al-Idarrdni, adding that in
his time, at the beginning of the seventh century
(the thirteenth a.d.), the gate might still be seen,
standing solitary in the midst of the surrounding
ruins.

Another building which serves to fix the position
of this Lower Bridge of Boats is the Palace of
Idumayd, which the chronicle speaks of as standing
on the Tigris bank at the lower end of the semicircle
of wall which was built to defend West Baghdad in
the year 251 ( a . d . 865), when the Caliph Musta'in
was about to be besieged by the troops sent against
him by his rival the Caliph Mu'tazz from Simarrd.
This wall must have included the Lower Bridge of
Boats in its circuit, and it formed the continuation
of the wall round the three northern quarters of
East Baghdad (as will be described later), which
came down to the river at the gate of the Tuesday
Market. The Palace of Idumayd had been built
half a century before this date, receiving its name
from a general of the time of the Caliph Mamhn,
Humayd ibn ‘Abd-al-Idamid, who died in 210
( a . i >. 825). He took a prominent part in suppressing
the revolt of Ibrihim, uncle of Mamhn, whom the
Arab party had sought to establish as Caliph in
Baghdad after the death of Amin; and Humayd
was for some time viceroy of 'Irik, being the friend
and supporter of die Wazir Hasan ibn Sahl, whose
daughter Birin the Caliph Mamin had married.
Khatib writes as though the Ka§r Humayd were
still existing in his day (a.h. 450), and it must have
stood on the Tigris bank, as is evident from the
description of it in a panegyric on Humayd, written

vin.] The Quarter of the Basrah Gate 97

by the poet'Ali ibn Jabalah, in which he praises the
beauty of the palace grounds lying on the river ^

jiTie I$!utuftd Quarter is frequently mentioned in
the chronicle of Ibn-al-Athir subsequent to the year
512 (a.d. 1118). In the sixth century (the twelfth
A.D.) it is described as a g^eat suburb with many
markets ; from south to north it stretched from the
'tsi Canal, where its houses were coterminous with
the upper part of the Kura3ryah, to the Sarit, near
the cemetery, in which was the shrine of Ma'rfif
Karkhi ; while from west to east it extended from
the highroad of the Basrah Gate down to the
Tigris bank, being here rather less than one mile
across. In the year 569 (a.d. 1174) ‘Adud-ad-Dln,
the Wazlr of the Caliph Mustadi, had his palace
in the l^utuM Quarter, and here he died in 573
(a.d. 1177), slain by the knife of a fanatic. In 601
(a. D. 1205) this quarter suffered much damage
during the riots which broke out between its in-
habitants and those of the neighbouring Kurayyah
Quarter, and the great inundation of the Tigris
in 614 (a.d. 1217) completed the ruin of those
streets and houses which the rioters had spared.

The other quarter lying between the Ba§rah
Gate and the Tigris was that of the Tustartyln,
namely of the people of Tustar, otherwise called
Shustar, the celebrated town in Khdlzistin on the
Kirhn River. The Baghdad quarter was so called,
being inhabited by settlers from Khlizistdn, who

Ya'kubi, 245, 306; Tabari, iii. 324, 1551 ; Kitab-al-Aghani, xviii.
106 (for this reference, which to a certain extent fixes the position of
the Kasr Humayd, I am indebted to Professor De Goeje) ; Khatib,
folios 71 a, 75 a, 76 b, 80 b, 87 a, 107 a ; Ibn-al-Athir, ix. 184, 285 to,
422 ; Yakut, iii. 301, 613 ; Mushtarik, 274.

H

BAGHDAD

98 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

manufactured here the Tustarl stuffs for which their
native city was celebrated.

The ruin that had overtaken the Round City
during the siege in the time of the Caliph Amin
was completed by the subsequent demolition of its
circular walls, and the quarter of the Basrah Gate
appears to have incorporated within its area most
of the houses that still remained habitable of the
old City of Manshr, its Great Mosque becoming
more specially the Friday mosque of this quarter.
When Ibn Jubayr visited Baghdad in 580 (a.d. 1 184),
he describes the quarter of the Ba§rah Gate as like
a small city standing by itself, with the Mosque of
Mansilr, ‘a great J^mi* and an ancient edifice very
firmly built’; and this suburb of the Ba§rah Gate,
traversed by the $ardt Canal, was one of the four
chief quarters into which West Baghdad had then
come to be divided^.

Between the Basrah Gate and the Tigris bank,
and probably along the lower course -of the $arAt,
lay the Cemetery of the Convent Gate (Makbarah
Bib-ad-Dayr), of which the piost celebrated tomb
was that of the Moslem saint Ma'rfif Karkhi. The
position of this shrine is of importance topographically,
since it is one of the few existing places in Western
Baghdad dating from the days of the Caliphs, for
Ma'rfif of Karkh has never ceased to be honoured
by the people as one of the chief patron saints of
Baghdad. The shrine and cemetery occupied the
upper limit of the KutuftS, Quarter, already described ;

' Ibn Jubayr, 237 ; Yakut, i. 850 ; iv. 137 % Ibn-al-Athir, x. 383 ; xi.
270, 296 ; xiL 133, 217. Kutufta. is said by Yakut to be a foreign word.
It is presumably the Aramaean or Syriac word ‘ meaning

‘ cut-off.’ Cf. Frankel, p. xx.

viii.] The Quarter of the Basrah Gate 99

but in regard to the exact situation of the original
convent {Dayr), from which the cemetery took its
name, Ydkilt confesses ignorance. It is not, how-
ever (he writes), to_be confounded with the Dayr-
ath-Tha'dlib (the Convent of the Foxes), as has so
often been done, for this last lay more than a mile
distant from the shrine of Ma'rtif, and two miles
from Baghdad. In the absence of more direct
evidence, it may be conjectured that this Cemetery
of the Dayr took its name from the ancient convent
which had existed at the SarAt Point (as the place
was called where that canal disembogued to the
Tigris) from times anterior to the building of Baghdad,
and where, as the chronicles relate, the Caliph Mansflr
temporarily took up his residence when he came to
lay out the plan of his new capital.

In regard to Ma*r6f, the son of Al-FirAzdn, much
is recorded, for he was the contemporary of H 4 rlan-ar-
Rashid, and celebrated as ‘ the ascetic of his age and
the Imim of his time.’ He died about the year 200
(a.d. 816), and Khatlb names him as one of the four
saints, the guardians of Baghdad, whose intercession
will ever prevent the approach of evil to the City of
Peace. He was by birth a Christian, but professed
Islam' at the hands of the Im 4 m ‘All-ar-Ridi, whose
freedman he became, and his merits were further
perpetuated by the fame won by his great disciple
Sari-as-SakatJ, the celebrated Sufi saint, whose tomb
has already been mentioned as standing in the
Shdinizlyah Cemetery on the KAfah highroad. The
shrine which had originally been built over the grave
of Ma'rhf was accidentally burnt in 459 (a.d. 1067),
but was rebuilt by order of the Caliph Kdim, under
the superintendence of the Sflfl Shaykh of Shaykhs

H 2

lOO

Bagdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Abu-Sa*d of Nlship^ir, and in 479 (a.d. 1086), when
Milik Shih, the Saljflk, and his Wazir Niz 4 m-al-
Mulk came to Baghdad, they visited this among
other celebrated shrines of the capital. In 580
(a.d. 1184) the traveller Ibn Jubayr mentions the
tomb of Ma'rAf, ‘ a man of righteousness, and one of
the most celebrated of saints'; and in 611 (a.d. 1214)
the younger son of the Caliph Nisir, dying before his
father, was buried near this shrine. Apparently on
this occasion the tomb was rebuilt, for at the present
day it still bears an inscription recording the year
A.H. 612 as the date of its latest restoration. It
evidently suffered but little during the Mongol siege
(in A.D. 1258), for Ibn Battitah, who visited Baghdad
in A. D. 1327, jspeaks of the tomb of Ma‘rhf of Karkh
as standing in the quarter of the Basrah Gate, and
a few years later, about 740 (a.d. 1339), I^amd- Allah
also mentions it among the notable shrines of West
Baghdad. There can be little doubt, therefore, that
the present shrine of Ma'rhf covers the site of his
tomb in the Convent Cemetery, where he was buried
during the reign of Hirfimkr-Rashld.

In regard to the so-called tomb of Zubaydah,
which is a large building standing at the present
day a short distance to the south of this shrine of
Ma*riif, more will be said in the sequel, all that
need be noted here is that there is no authority for
this ever having been the tomb of the celebrated
wife of Hdrhn-2ir-Rashld, she having been buried in
the Kkzimayn, as will be mentioned in a subsequent
chapter \

^ Khatib, H2b, 113b; Yakut, ii. 650; iv. 137; Tabari, uL 280;
Ibn-Khallikan, No. 739; Ibn-al-Athir, vL 225; x. 37, 103; xii. 201;
Ibn Jubayr, 227; Ibn Batuta, ii. 107; Nuzhat, 149; Niebuhr, ii. 243;
Rawlinson, EncycL BriL^ s.v. Baghdad.

VIII.] The Quarter of the Basrah Gate loi

The course of the §arit Canal must have curved
round through almost a semicircle, following the
walls of the City of MansAr ; but it is to be remarked
that while at the K Afah Gate this canal was separated
from the wall by a considerable space (occupied by
the square of the KAfah Gate), at the Basrah Gate
it ran close under the city wall, for this last gateway
is described as opening immediately on the $arit,
overlooking it at the point crossed by the New
Bridge. ]^um-as-§ar^t (the $arit Point) was the
name given to the spit of land where the canal
ran out to the Tigris, and here in Persian times had
been held the market called Shk Baghdad, where,
as already stated, in the early days of the Caliph
Abu Bakr, the Moslems had made their first suc-
cessful raid into Mesopotamia. Near the §ar&t
Point also, later on, had stood the Christian convent
where Man§flr sojourned when planning Baghdad,
and this probably, as already mentioned, had given
its name to the neighbouring cemetery.

From the §arit Point upstream to the Main
Bridge of Boats opposite the Khur^isdn Gate, a
plot of ground nearly a mile in length but much
less in width, lay between the wall of the Round
City and the Tigris. Judgfing from the curve of
the river and the quarter circle of the wall between
the Basrah and the Khurdsdn Gates, this piece of
land was probably broader in its upper than in its
lower part ; and it was occupied in the earlier period
chiefly by the Palace of the Khuld and its gardens.
The If asr-al-Khuld (the Palace of Eternity) was so
called from its gardens being supposed almost to
rival those of Paradise mentioned in a verse of the
Rurin (xxv. i6), which speaks of ‘the Palace of

102

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Eternity which is promised to the God-fearing’;
and it was built as already stated by the Caliph
Man§hr, who took up his abode here in the year
158 (a.d. 775). The palace itself stood on the
Tigpris bank opposite the Khurisin Gate and a
short distance below the Main Bridge of Boats.
According to one account, Manshr chose this spot
for his palace because the site was of all that neigh-
bourhood the highest above the Tigris bed, and
hence the place was almost free from the plague of
gnats which swarmed elsewhere. It is also asserted
by one of our authorities that the Christian Convent,
where the Caliph had lodged, was near -here, and
not at the $ar 4 t point lower down, as is more
generally said.

Both Mansdr and Mahdi spent much of their
time in the Khuld — though the latter usually
preferred living in his own palace at Rusifah — but
the ]^a§r-al-Khuld is more especially connected with
the memory, of HSrCln-ar-Rashid, who kept his state
here, enjoying its magnificent gardens, wlijich, bor-
dering on the river, gave easy access to the distant
quarters of the city. After the death of the great
Caliph, his son, the luckless Amin (as has been
already mentioned), entrenched himself in the Khuld
and the neighbouring Round City, when outer Bagh-
dad (East and West) was finally occupied by the
armies of Mamlin : and from the palace wharf, called
the Mashra'ah of the Khurisin Gate, he embarked,
seeking to escape, but finding his death at the hands
of Tihir.

Below the Khuld, but some distance above the
Sarit Point, was another palace, called Al-Kardr,
a name signifying ‘the stagnant waters,’ or ‘the

VIII.] The Quarter of the Basrah Gate 103

pool.’ It is frequently mentioned in the accounts of
this famous siege, and is the palace otherwise called
the Ka§r of Zubaydah, being so named after the
widow of Hirhn-ar- Rashid, and the mother of Amin,
who through all his disasters shared the fortunes of
her favourite son. The palace was also known as
the Kasr Umm Ja'far, that being the surname of
Zubaydah. Both the Khuld and the Kar&r suffered
so severely by the stones shot from the catapults
which Tihir had erected for bombarding Baghdad,
that after the siege they appear to have been almost
in a state of ruin, though according to one account,
when Mamiin finally reached Baghdad in 203 (a.d.
818), he at first held his court in the Khuld, while
the Wazir Id asan Ibn Sahl was preparing the ffasani
Palace (in East Baghdad) for his master’s reception.

The next Caliph Mu'tasim, as history relates,
removed the seat of government from Baghdad to
SimarrS., and during the sixty odd years that his
successors made this latter city their capital, the
Khuld must have fallen completely to ruin. When
finally in 279 (a.d. 892) the Caliphate was re-estab-
lished in Baghdad, Mu'taijid took up his residence
in the palaces of the eastern bank, and the Khuld
thus continued an unoccupied ruin till the year 368
(a.d. 979), when the Buyid Prince 'Adud-ad-Dawlah
appropriated its site for the buildings of his great
BfmiristfLn or hospital*.

The New Hospital of Western Baghdad is reported
by Yflkfit to have stood somewhat higher up the
river bank than the spot where the Khuld had been,
and this confirms the contemporary notice in Mu-

^ Ibn Serapion, 24 ; Baladhuri, 246 ; Tabari, iii. 384, 848, 906, 954 ;
Mas'udi, vi, 475, 477 ; Yakut, I 807 ; ii. 459.

104 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

kaddasi, who, writing about the year 375 (a.d. 985),
describes it as having been recently built by ‘Adud-
ad-Dawlah, close beside the Main Bridge of Boats,
from which the Khuld had been separated by out-
lying buildings. According to one account, the
hospital was only completed in a. h. 3 7 1, a year before
‘Adud died. Nearly a century later, in the year 466
(a.d. 1074), it suffered some damage at the time of
a great inundation of the Tigris, when the waters
are reported to have entered by its windows and
the whole building was flooded. A like misfortune
occurred in the year 554 (a.d. 1159), and again in
569 (a.d. 1174), when, during the spring-time, after
forty days of ceaseless rain upstream in the Mosul
district, the Tigris rose as it had never done before.
On this occasion the whole of Baghdad was flooded
and many houses fell in. The shutters of the windows
in the Hospital had, it appears, been removed, and
the flood rose so high that boats entered the building
through the empty doorways and window-openings,
floating about in the interior. The damage done by
this inundation must, however, have been promptly
repaired; for when, in 580 (a.d. 1184), Ibn Jubayr
came to Baghdad, the great hospital was again in
full working order. He describes it as an immense
palace, situated on the Tigris bank, with many
chambers and separate wards furnished like a royal
abode. Every Monday and Thursday, he says, the
cky physicians attended there to visit patients, for
whom both food and medicine were gratuitously
prepared by servants especially appointed for this
office. The building, he adds, was plentifully supplied
with water from the river.

This Hospital, further, in later times, gave its

vni.] The Quarter of the Basrah Gate ^ 105

name to the market, called SAIf-al-Mdristin,
like a small city, was one of the great suburbs^
West Baghdad, lying between the suburb of the
Basrah Gate and the Shiri' Quarter, which will be
described in the next chapter. With the lapse of
time houses and streets had sprung up round the
hospital buildings, occupying much of the ground
where the gardens of the Khuld Palace had formerly
been, and the district formed the populous Suburb
of the Hospital, which is described by YSkht in the
beginning of the thirteenth century a.d.

When, in 656 (a. d. 1258), Hiiligh besieged
Baghdad, he made the Quarter of the Bimiristiln
'Adudi (as it was called) the upper point of his
attack on the western side, and the hospital probably
suffered much during the siege operations ; for, less
than a hundred years after this time, when Ibn
Batfitah visited Baghdad, in 730 (a. d. 1330), he
found the place a complete ruin, and of its former
buildings only traces of walls could be seen. It is
probable, however, that though the houses remained
standing, the hospital had been dismantled even
before the Mongol siege, namely at some time
prior to the year 630 (a.d. 1233), when the Caliph
Mustansir (as will be described in a later chapter)
founded his Blmdristfln of the Mustan§iriyah College
in East Baghdad^.

Once more to return, however, to the Round City
as this was left by its founder, the Caliph Man§hr :
we are told by Ya'khbf that originally between the
Khurdsin Gate and the Main Bridge of Boats, where

^ Mukaddasi, 120; Ya*kubi, 249; Ibn Khallikan, No. 543, p. 33;
Abu-l-Faraj, 299, 474 ; Ibn-al-Athir, x. 62 ; xi. 164, 270 ; Ibn Jubayr,
227 ; Rashid-ad-Din, 282 ; Ibn Batutah, iL 107.

io6 Baghdad during the Caliphate

the great highroad into Persia crossed the Tigris,
lay the Review Ground, immediately adjacent to the
Khuld Palace. Next to this were the Royal Stables ;
and at the bridge-head itself there was again an
open space or square flanked by the workshops of
the bridge, and the Office of the Shurtah or chief
of police. Beyond, to the left of this and upstream,
came the quarter of the Shiri‘, which will be spoken
of in the following chapter: but it will be understood
that this review ground and the stables, with other
buildings of the days of the Caliph Manshr, must all
have entirely disappeared long before the time when
‘Adud-ad-Dawlah began to build his hospital, their
sites coming afterwards to be occupied by the
markets and streets which formed the new quarter
of the Bhndristdn.

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{l^t

CHAPTER IX

THE SHArI* quarter AND THE TRENCH OF tAhIR

The Shdri* Quarter and Fiefs. The Baghtyin and Burjuliniyah
Suburbs. The IJarbiyah Quarter and the Trench of Tihir. The
Anbir Gate and Highroad : the Garden of Tihir. The Iron Gale.
The parb Gate. The Katrabbul Gate. The Zubaydiyah Fief and its
Mosque. The Straw Gate. The Zuhayriyah Suburb. The Bib-as-
Saghir. The Hanifah Suburb and the Palace of ‘Umirah. The
Durti Monastery and the Dayr-al-KibUb. The Tihirid Palace and
its history.

Upstream, running along the Tigris bank, between
the Main Bridge of Boats and the Upper Bridge,
lay the highroad (Ash-Shiri‘) which gave its name
to the adjacent quarter ; the Shiri* here forming
the eastern boundary of the Uarblyah, which was
the great suburb stretching to the northward of the
City of Man§{lr, and balancing the Karkh Quarter
on the south. In the year 580 (a.d. 1184), when
Ibn Jubayr visited Baghdad, the Uarblyah having
fallen in great part to ruin, the Shiri' had risen to
be one of the four main quarters of West Baghdad ;
but as originally laid out by Manshr, this consisted
of the highroad only, which traversed a number of
fiefs lying along the river bank. The first of these,
near the Main Bridge, after passing the Offices of

io8 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

the Bri'^.ge Works, was the fief of Prince Sulaymin,
and next it came that of Prince two sons

of the Caliph Man§fir. The street called Darb
Sulaymdn also took its name from the first of these
princes — who, according to another account, died in
199 (a.d. 815), and' was the grandson of Mansfir —
his palace standing in the street immediately op-
posite the bridge-head. Prince Sdlihi, whose fief
came next, is known by the surname of Al-Maskln
(the Poor Man), for unlike the other Abbasid
princes he preferred piety and poverty to riches,
and lived the saintly life of an ascetic.

Many other fiefs followed these along the river
bank, and the Shdri*, or highway, before coming to
the road which led off to the Upper Bridge of Boats,
passed through the great fief or suburb known as
that of the Baghl3dn, who were the descendants
of a certain Uaf? ibn 'Othmin, the Palace of Hafs,
which ultimately, passed to the Tihirids, standing
in this district. The Baghiyln Fief is described by
Khatlb as lying between the Darb Siwir^ (the
Street of the Bracelet) and the Rabad or suburb
of the Buijuliniyah — otherwise the Burjuldnlyln —
so called from the people from Burjuldn, a village
near Wisit, who had come to settle here. Beyond
this, and further upstream, came the market which
occupied the south side of the Fardah or Upper
Harbour, where stood the Palate of the Tahirids
in the midst of their fiefs.

The Harblyah, the name given to the great
quarter of the town lying west of the Shari* and
north of the Syrian Gate of the City of MansClr,
took its name from a certain I^arb, son of 'Abd-
^ Pronunciation uncertain, as also the meaning here given.

IX.] SMn^ Quafier and Trench of T&kir 109

Allah, a native of Balkh, who became a favourite
of the Caliph Man§flr, and was by him made chief
of the Baghdad Police. Later on Man§hr trans-
ferred I^arb to be Chief of Police in Mosul, when
Ja'far, the son of the Caliph, was appointed to that
governorship, and finally blarb was sent to Tiflis,
in Georgia, where he met his death in the year
147 (a.d. 764), at the hands of certain Turks who
had rebelled in the neighbouring province of Darband
on the Caspian. As described by Ya'kfibi towards
the end of the third century (the ninth a.d.), the
population of the Harbiyah Quarter was then chiefly
made up of Persian or Turk immigrants who had
originally come to Baghdad in the train of the
Abbasids, namely of people from the lands that
are now generally known as Central Asia. Its
broad markets and numerous streets were occu-
pied by fiefs which Mansfir had originally granted
to men from Balkh, Merv, and BukhdrS, to the
countrymen of the Kibul-Sh^lh, and to people from
Khuw^Lrizm (Khiva) or from Sughd — and each
company had been placed under its head man and
captain

In general terms the Idarblyah of West Baghdad
(taken to include the Shdri') is described as lying
.opposite the Shammislyah Quarter of the eastern
bank. The I^arblyah had thus the Tigris to the
east of it, the Syrian Gate and the semicircle of the
adjacent wall belonging to the City of Mansfir for
its southern boundary, while the Trench of Tdhir
occupied the north side. The western boundary
was formed by the great Anbdr highroad, beyond

^ Ibn Jubayr, 227 ; Baladhuri, 295 ; Ya'kubi, 249, 258 ; Istakhri, 83 ;
Yakut, i 55a ; ii. 234, 563 ; Khatib, folio 80 b.

no Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

which lay the Little §ardt, a minor canal (as already
described), which flowed from the Trench of T^if
back into the Great §arit a short way above the
Khfah Gate. The Trench of must have

carried a considerable body of water — ^to judge by
the masonry bridges needed for the roads to cross
it — and it will be remembered that the Trench was
the left arm at the bifurcation of the Upper $ar^lt,
which occurred at a point less than one league down
the course of this last, and at a distance of more
than a mile above Baghdad. Not far from the point
of its bifurcation the Trench, after throwing off the
Little Sarit to the right, curved up. round the
Uarbiyah, and finally flowed out into the Tigris
at the Fardah or Upper Harbour^. By whom the
Trench was first dug is not apparently recorded, but
by its name it may be taken to have been the work
of Tihir, the founder of the Tihirid dynasty, and
general-in-chief of the army dispatched by Mamhn
against his brother Amtn. The Trench must already
have been in existence at the time of this siege
of Baghdad, of the year 198 (a.d. 814), for Tdhir
is then described as having his headquarter camp
in a garden of the suburb beyond it.

The positions of places in the Harblyah Quarter
can be approximately fixed by the courses of the
three small canals — or water-conduits — ^which entered
this suburb from the north-west across the Trench.
Four gates here gave exit from the Harblyah to
the ICatrabbul district; and the highroads, passing

’ Yakut (iii. 378) by an oversight states that the Khandak or
Trench of Tahir falls into the Tigris ‘ before the Basrah Gate of the
City of Mansur’: he is evidently here thinking of the Sarit, and he
has been duly corrected by his epitomist, the author of the Marasid

(ii. 151).

IX.] Sharif Quarter and Trench of Tahir in

out through these gates, crossed the Trench by
arched bridges of masonry (Ifantarah) which bore
respectively the names of the gates. Taking these
in their order down the course of the Trench, the
first was the AnbAr gate and bridge, by which the
highroad coming from the Syrian Gate of the Round
City went out to the town of Anbir on the Euphrates,
skirting the left or northern bank of the Sar4t
Canal, and then along the Nahr ‘Isi. On the Trench
outside the Anbir Gate lay the garden where
had fixed his headquarter camp during the great
siege, and here mention is made of a second gate-
way called the Garden Gate {B4b-al-Bustin). The
Anb4r Gate at the bridge is stated to have been
set on fire by the people of Baghdad when
stormed the Round City; and according to one
account it was in the garden outside this gate that
the unfortunate Caliph ^ min was summarily put to
death by after tl.e failure of his attempt

to escape from Baghdad. According to the descrip-
tion given by Ibn Serapion, a watercourse from the
Nahr Batitiyi crossed the Trench by the bridge at
the Anbir Gate, and entering the Harbiyah passed
down the Street of the Anb4r Gate to the Street
of the Ram, where its waters failed, as will be more
particularly described in the next chapter.

The next gate and bridge on the Xrench was the
B4b-al-yadld (the Iron Gate) opening within the
Harbi 5 rah on the road of the Dujayl (Shiri' Dujayl).
The second water-channel, from the Nahr Batdtiyi
coming into Baghdad, passed down this road, but
did not cross the Trench by the bridge at^the Iron

' Often written in the MSS., in error, Bdb-al-yh^</, ‘the New
Gate.’

1X2

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Gate; for this watercourse had a separate bridge
to itself, called the *AbbArat-al-Khkh (the Conduit
at the Cabin or Reed-hut), which spanned the Trench
between the Iron Gate and that of Uarb, the next
below. The subsequent course of this, the Dujayl
Road, Canal will enable us to plot out the positions
of many buildings in the Harbiyah existing at the
time when Ibn Serapion wrote ; and, after follow-
ing a sinuous course, its surplus waters tJtimately
joined the little canal of the Syrian Gate, which, it
will be remembered, flowed up northward from the
Razin Canal. In the account of the first siege
of Baghdad the Iron Gate is celebrated for having
served as the gibbet on which the head of the
Caliph Amin was exposed to public view, before
being dispatched by T^hir to Mamfln in Khurisin,
as indubitable proof of the death of his rival.

The next gate (and bridge) was that called the
B4b IJarb, which took its name from the founder
of the Idarblyah ; and the third water-channel from
the Bati^iyA, after crossing the Trench by this
bridge, passed down the Street of the Ifarb Gate,
and ultimately discharged its waters also into the
canal of the Syrian Gate. This third watercourse,
as will be seen later, is an important factor for
plotting out the eaistern side of the Harbiyah Quarter,
being connected by a branch transversely with the
Dujayl Road Canal. Beyond the Harb Bridge, and
on the northern side of the Trench, lay the Harb
Cemetery, in wjbicli among other celebrated shrines
was the tomb of the Im&m Ibn Hanbal. In later
times, when the Harbiyah Quarter had shrunk to
a moiety of its former size, the small suburb which
still kept the old name of the Harbiyah, centered

IX.] Shdri' Quarter and Trench of Tdhir 113

round the. old I^arb Gate, and, for the most part,
lay only along the southern side of the Trench.

The lowest of the gates on the Trench was the
Bib I^aprabbul, and its bridge was known as the
Kantarah Ru^i Umm Ja'far, namely the Bridge
of the Mill of Umm Ja'far or Zubaydah, the wife of
Hirin-ar- Rashid, l^atrabbul, from which the gate
took its name, as already stated, comprised the
whole of the g^eat district in which the upper part
of Western Baghdad was situated ; and technically
speaking this also included all the lands on the left
or northern bank of the §arit Canal, so that both the
site occupied by the City of Mansir and the IJar-
bl)rah were within the Ifatrabbul district. The
Katrabbul Gate, as is evident from the accounts
of the second siege of Baghdad (in the time of
the Caliph Musta*ln), must have stood at no g^eat
distance from the Tigris bank. Not far from it, but
beyond the Trench, stood another gate known as the
Bdb-al-I^ati'ah, or the Gate of the Fief. This fief
had belonged to the Princess Zubaydah (whose mills
near this have just been mentioned), and it was
known indifferently either as the Zubaydlyah or as
the Fief of Umm Ja'far. The more important
moiety of the fief lay on the upper bank of the
Trench, near where this last flowed out into the
Tigrris at the Upper Harbour, and the angle of land
enclosed between the Tigris and the Trench was
presumably shut off by a wall in which stood the
Gate of the Fief. When originally granted, and
possibly during later times also, the Zubaydlyah
Fief extended some distance across the Trench to
the southward, as is made evident from the descrip-
tion given by Ibn Serapion, and it must then have

I

BAGHDAD

II4 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch-

curved down almost to the Tigris bank at the
Baghiyin Fief below the Palace.

At the period of' the second siege of Baghdad
in the year 251 (a.d. 865), the great wall, which had
been constructed in haste by order of the Caliph
Musta'in, began in West Baghdad at the river bank,
close to the gate of the Zubaydah Fief, and in the
accounts of the siege operations we learn that the
chief camp of the army from Sdmarr 4 was pitched
between this gate and the Bdb j^atrabbul on the
Trench. The bridge outside the Katrabbul Gate
,was the one on the Trench that withstood the
longest the ruin which gradually overtook the whole
of the Idarbtyah Quarter. When the author of the
Mari§id wrote, in about the year 700 (a.d. i 300 )»
all the bridges and g^tes along the Trench, except
this one, had completely disappeared. He states
that he himself had seen the Bridge of I^atrabbul,
as it was then called, adding that it was only pulled
down a short time after the beginning of the eighth
century (the fourteenth a.d,), and that when he saw
it the bridge had consisted of two great arches
constructed of kiln-burnt bricks, which, after the
demolition, it was found worth while to carry away
to be used again in other buildings \

The land afterwards occupied by the Zubaydiyah
Fief had originally been granted by the Caliph
Man§6r to his son Ja'far (the same whom Harb,
the founder of the Harblyah, had served as Chief
of Police when Ja'far was named Governor of Mosul),
and from Ja'far the fief had passed to the Princess
Zubaydah, who built herself a palace in the fief,

^ Tabari, iii. 934, 1558, 1562 1 Ibn Serapion, 24, 27 ; Mas'udi, vi.
482 ; Yakut, i. 460; Maiasid, ii. 432.

IX.] Shari* Quarter and Trench of Tahir 115

which last came to be known as the !^ati'iyah or
the Zubaydiyah Quarter, being chiefly inhabited by
the servants and followers of the princess during
the years when her power was at its height. Later
on the fief must have become the property of the
reigning Caliph, for about a century after her time,
in the year 306 (a.d. 918), the Zubaydiyah was
occupied by the Caliph Muktadir, who bringing
part of his I^arlm over to this side of the Tigris,
temporarily established his residence here, the
officials and his courtiers living in tents that were
set up in the grounds of the fief.

As already stated, the Zubaydiyah Fief must
originally have occupied both, sides of the Trench,
but its more important lands, in later times, lay on
the north or left bank, coming down as far as
the Tigris on the east, and stretching upstream to
ihe gate leading out from the suburbs to the shrine
of the Kdzimayn, which was known as the Bib-
at-Tibn or the Straw Gate. Canonically speaking
this gate was the .northern limit of Western Baghdad,
for the doctors of the law held that the city proper
occupied the land along the Tigris ‘from the Bib-
at-Tibn to the S^^rilt Canal,’ Karkh being ruled
to form a suburb. The Zubaydiyah Fief became
in later times a very populous quarter, and as such
possessed its own Friday mosque. This, according
to the account given by Kha^lb, was first erected
in the year 379 (a.d. 989), in consequence of a vision
vouchsafed to a certain pious woman of this quarter.

^ Tibn is the broken straw, reduced almost to powder, and used for
fodder, which is left after the treading out of the corn ; it presents
therefore a totally different appearance to our sheaf of long straw-
stalks.

ii6 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

She declared that in her dream she had seen the
Prophet Muljammad praying in the little oratory
■which at this date stood in the fief, and that a
celestial voice had foretold to her the day of her
death. Subsequent miracles confirmed the authen-
ticity of her statements, the mark of the Prophet’s
hand was found on the ■wall of the building, and the
woman died at the date named by the voice. With
the special permission of the reigning Caliph, Tdi*,
the little oratory was therefore rebuilt on an en-
larged plan, an Im 4 m •was appointed to conduct the
Friday prayers, and the new J 4 mi‘ -was counted as
one of the chief congregational mosques of Baghdad^.

Both the mosque and the adjacent Quarter of
the Zubaydiyah must have fallen somewhat early
into ruin, for by the year 700 (a.d. 1300), when the
author of the Mardsid wrote, this mosque had
entirely disappeared, though he states that the ruins
of the quarter might still be traced along the river
bank in the upper part of the city. Twice during
the preceding centuries this region had suffered
severely from the inundations of the Tigris, and it

^ Ibn-al-Athir (ix. 48), under the year 379, mentions the building
of this mosque, which he names the J 4 mi'-al-Katfah. It is to be noted
that in West Baghdad Al-KatVah^ ^the Fief,’ always refers to the
Zubaydiyah, while in Eastern Baghdad Al-KatVah was more
especially the *Ajami or Persian Fief. On the occasion of describing
the Zubaydiyah, Yakut (iv. 141) mentions a second l^alliyin Canal —
as of the Zubaydiyah — the name being identical with that of the better
known stream in Karkh (see p. 81). The author of the Marasid,
however (ii. 432), corrects the name to Nahr Kalidtin; and this
second Kalliyin Canal would seem to be a pure invention, on the
part of Yakut, who misread the MS. of Khatib, where the name given
is not J^alliyin, but Kdjildytn, or some such name (compare the British
Museum MS. of Khatib, folio. 102 a, with the Paris MS., folio 34b,
for the reading of the MSS. vary). This last canal, if it really ever
existed, was probably a minor offshoot of the Trench of Tdhir.

IX,] Shari' Quarter and Trench of Tdhir 117

would further appear that by the changing of its
bed (as will be mentioned when we come to speak
of the disappearance of the so-called tomb of Ibn
blanbal) the river may ultimately have come to
flow over part of the site of the former Fief of
Zubaydah. Adjacent to the Zubaydlyah Quarter
had been the Zuhayilyah, with the Fiefe of the
Mawlas or Freedmen of the Princess Zubaydah.
This Zuhayrlyah (for there was another near the
Kflfah Gate, as already mentioned on p. 59) was
the fief of a certain Zuhayr ibn Muliammad of
Abiward in KhurAsin, and it stretched along the
old wall of the Zubaydi5rah between the Straw Gate
(Bdb-at-Tibn) and the Katrabbul Gate. Into it
had opened the Bdb-a§-§aghlr (the Little Gate), but
when Yiktit wrote in 623 (a.d, 1226) both this gate
and the fief of Zuhayr had long since disappeared,
so that no one then knew what had been their exact
positions. The gfreat cemeteries beyond the Tibn
and ijarb Gates, with the adjacent Shrine of the
Kdzimayn, will be described in a following chapter,
but occupying gfround between these graveyards
and the Zubaydlyah Quarter, in early times there
had existed a suburb called the Rabad of IJanlfah, or
of Abu Idanifah (for the authorities differ as to the
name), so named after one of the nobles of the court
of Mansfir, who must not be confounded with the
more celebrated Im&m, Abu Ijianlfah. This suburb
is described as having stretched from the If uraysh
Cemetery to the Tibn Gate and the Harlm;

and in it was the Palace (Dir) of ‘Umirah ibn
Uamzah, freedman of the Caliph Man?hr, the spot
where his palace came to be built having of old
been a garden planted, report said, by one of the

ii8 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Persian kings who had reigned before the days
of Islam. At the period when the Mar&sid was
written, namely about tlie year 700 (a. d. 1300),
all the houses here had already fallen to ruin, and
the waste land was cultivated for cornfields, but
in the earlier times of the Caliphate this region
had been as densely populated as Karkh and the
southern quarters of West Baghdad,

To the north of the Zubaydlyah, and lying on the
river bank opposite the Shammislyah Gate in East
Baghdad, stood the great Christian monastery of
Durti, which is frequently mentioned in the earlier
chronicles. It is described as having been at one
time crowded with monks, and it possessed a stately
well-built church. Near by was also another similar
establishment called Dayr-al-Kibib (the Monastery
of the Cupolas), and in the year 334 (a.d. 946) the
Durta Monastery was a place of sufficient importance
to have become for a time the residence of the
Caliph Mustakft, showing that it must have been a
building of no inconsiderable extent. By the year
700 (a.d, 1300), however, through the changes in
the course of the river, both these monasteries had
been swept away, no trace of them remaining when
the author of the Marisid wrote his epitome of
Yakliti.

Partly enclosed by the older and lower part of
the Zubaydlyah Fief, and standing on the southern
bank of the Trench so as to overlook the Tigris
and the Upper Harbour, was the great Palace of

’ See Plan, No. Ill; Ya'kubi, 250; Khatib, folios 67 a, 102 a, b;
Baladhuri, 296; ‘Arib, 71; Yakut, ii. 521, 563, 659, 685, 750, ^4;
iv. 132, 141, 143 ; Mushtarik, 200 ; Marasid, i. 429, 459 ; ii. 151, 432 ;
Mas'udi, viii. 391.

IX.] Sharif Quarter and Trench of Tahir 119

Tihir, already frequently mentioned, at one time
general of the armies of Mamhn, and afterwards
independent ruler of Khurisdn, who bore the sur-
name of DhA-l-Yaminayn or Ambidexter. This
palace was one of the most notable buildings in
West Baghdad, and during many years was the
residence of the Governor of the City. Hence it
came to be considered in a certain degree as a royal
palace, and had the rights of sanctuary granted to
it, where offenders might gain a safe refuge, and on
this account was known as the Tdhirid Harlm or
Precinct.

The TfLhirid family was one of the most important
of the semi-independent princely houses that rose
to power under the shadow of the Caliphate in the
third century (the ninth a.d.). The direct descen-
dants of Tihir ‘Ambidexter,’ above mentioned,
became independent rulers of Khurisin, and a
cousin, Is]^ik ibn Ibrihtm, was made Governor of
Baghdad during the reigns of Withik and Muta-
wakkil, when the seat of the Caliphate had been
removed to Simarri. This Ishik had previously
been Chief of Police under Mamin, and he died in
the year 235 (a.d. 850). Later on another member
of the same house, Muhammad ibn 'Abd-Allah, was
Governor of Baghdad in 251 (a.d. 865), during the
short reign of Musta'in, and it was he who organized
the defence of the older capital during the second
of its great sieges, when the Caliph Musta'in, having
fled from Simarri to Baghdad, was pursued thither,
besieged, and finally deposed by the Turk body-
guard who had espoused the cause of his cousin
Mu'tazz.

A generation later, at the time of the final return

120

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

of the Caliphs to Baghdad, in the reign of Mu'taijid,
the Tihirid family having died out, their yartm
or palace became a secondary residence of the
Caliphs — ^who by this date had already established
their more permanent abode in the new palaces of
East Baghdad — and Mu'tadid dying in 289 (a.d.
902), his body was brought across the Tigris and
buried in the celebrated Marble House (the Dir-ar-
Rikhdm) of the Tihirid Harim. ‘All Muktafl, the
next Caliph, who died in 295 (a.d. 908), was likewise
buried here, probably also Muktadir, his successor,
who was slain in 320 (a.d. 932) at the Shammislyah
Gate of East Baghdad by the bodyguard, when his
corpse was left for a time unburied, till at last the
people by night carried it away and gave it decent
sepulture. During the next few years puppet Caliphs
were set up and deposed, one after another, at
the pleasure of the Captain of the Bodyguard, and
the Tihirid Harim became a state prison where the
deposed Caliph and his probable successor in the
Caliphate lived together side by side. Thus in 333
(a.d. 944) Mustakfl was brought from the Tihirid
Palace to ascend the throne of Muttakl, who had
been blinded and deposed; both Muttakl and the
Caliph j^ihir, who had suffered the fate of Muttalci
in 322 (a.d. 934), remaining to end their days
within the Harim of Tihir, where they were buried
with other members of their house.

A couple of centuries later, in 530 (a.d. 1136),
the Harim was plundered by the populace

of Baghdad at the close of the two months' siege
which the Caliph Mangir Rishid suffered as the
penalty for defying the power of the Saljik Sultan
Mas'id. Much wealth is said then to have been

IX.] Skhri' Quarter and Trench of Tdhir 121

carried off from the g^eat palace, and its devastation,
was before long completed by the inundation of the
Tigris, which occurred in the year 614 (a.d. 1217).
Yikht, writing in 623 (a.d. 1226), states that the
'J'^irid fjarlm in his day stood ruined and deserted
amongst the remains of former houses- and palaces.
The adjacent quarter, however, was still in part
inhabited, and a market was held in some of the
streets, these forming as it were a separate town-
ship which stood solitary, apart from the other
quarters of West Baghdad, surrounded by its own
•walP.

* Khatib, 87 b ; Mas'udi, viii. 212, 288, 351, 379, 383 ; Yakut, ii. 255,
783 ; Ibn-al-Athir, ix. 26 ; xii. 217.

CHAPTER X

THE ^ARbIyAH quarter

Road to the Upper Bridge of Boats. The Canal of the Syrian
Gate. The Slaves^ House. The Harb Gate Road and the Suburb
of Abu *Awn. The later Harbiyah and its Mosque. The Quadrangles
of Abu-l-*Abb^s and Shabtb. The Dujayl Road. The Persian
Quarters of the IJarbtyah. The Abni and the Dihkins. The Abu-1-
Jawn Bridge and the Market of the Syrian Gate. The three Arcades
near the highroad to the Upper Bridge of Boats. The Syrian Gate,
the Prison, and the Cemeteiyr The Garden of Kass and the Anbir
Gate Road. The Quarter of the Lion and the Ram. The Shrine of
Ibr^im-al-Harbi. The Bukhariot Mosque and the Ramaliyah.

Immediateey below the Idarlm the Upper

Bridge of Boats crossed the Tigris, to which led the
highroad from ^he Syrian Gate of the City of Man§iir,
passing through the HarbiyaK Quarter diagonally.
This great road to the Upper Bridge, Ya'kiibl at the
close of the third century (the ninth a.d.) describes
as having markets along its whole length, both to
the right hand and the left, and from his contempo-
rary, I bn Serapion, we learn that a small canal ran
more or less parallel with this road, in the space
between it and the river bank, from the Sjrrian Gate
to ‘ the outskirt of the Zubaydt5rah,’ where its waters
finally disappeared in irrigation channels. This is

The Harbtyah Quarter

123

known as the Canal of the S 3 aian Gate, and as already
mentioned, it was derived from the Razin Canal, at
a point near where this last was crossed by the
K6fah highroad, being carried over the Sar4t by
the Old Bridge, whence it flowed round outside the
wall of the Round City from the Ktifah Gate, past
the Syrian Gate, up to the Zubaydlyah Fief. This
channel, it will be noticed, flowed from south to
north (from the Old Bridge to near tlie western end
of the Upper Bridge of Boats), and into it drained
the two canals from the Batitiyi, which, as already
described, entered the ffarblyah, the one by the
road of the Harb Gate, and tlae other by the Dujayl
highroad.

Entering the Idarbiyah Quarter from the Upper
Bridge of Boats, and taking the highroad to the
Syrian Gate, the Harfm of '^^as on the right

hand, while on the left lay the congeries of buildings
called the Slaves’ House (Dir-ar-Raklk)^, to which
the thoroughfare of the Sh4ri' Ddr-ar-Rakfl? went
crosswise, coming past the Tihirid Harlm from the
Klajrabbul Bridge, this being the direct road from
the Tibn Gate beyond the Trench. The Slaves’
House had been originally used in the days of
Man§(!lr as barracks for his domestic slaves, who
were bought and imported from the Turk border-
lands, to be placed on their arrival in Baghdad
under the superintendence of his chamberlain Rabi‘;
and also near the Slaves’ House Ya'kiibl mentions
the fief where the pages (Ghulims) of the chamber-
lain had their lodgings. In course of time the

^ In the MSS. of Khatib this name is generally written Ddr-ad-
Dakik, which would mean * the Flour House ’ ; but from numerous
passages in Ya*kubi and Yakut, this is evidently a clerical error.

124 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Ddr-ar-Raktk gave its name to the surrounding
suburb, and the name continued in use down to the
seventh century (the thirteenth a. D.), for when
Yd^ht wrote a market was still held in this quarter,
though many of the neighbouring houses had 'then
fallen to ruin. Further, it would appear that the
portion of the Zubaydl)^ Fief which lay on the
south side of the Trench had come to be more
commonly known by the name of the Ddr-ar-Rafetlj:,
as early as the fifth centurj' (the eleventh a. d.), when
Khatlb was living in Baghdad.

Next to the quarter of the Slaves’ House, and
connected with it by the crossroad from the 'J'dhirid
Harim, was the fief of Abu 'Awn, which Ya'IffibI
describes as lying nearer the river bank and the
quarter of the Shdri'. The palace of Ibn Abu *Awn,
son of the original owner of the fief, is stated by
Ibn Serapion to have stood on the road named after
him, along which passed the canal from the Harb
Gate. The road of Ibn Abu 'Awn, therefore, would
appear to have been a side street leading to this fief
and turning off the highroad which went tfrom the
Upper Bridge to .the Syrian Gate. This crossroad
of Ibn Abu 'Awn must further have been the con-
tinuation of the road coming from the Harb Gate,
down which the canal, above mentioned, passed, and
the highroad , from the Syrian Gate to the Upper
Bridge of Boats appears to have crossed this Canal
by the arched masonry bridge which Ya'kfibi speaks
of as the Kantarah-at-Tabb4nin(the Straw-merchants'
Bridge) \ Abu *Awn, from, whom the fief and the
subsequent suburb received their name, was a native

^ Ya’knbi, 348, 249; Ibn Serapion, 25, 27, 28; Yaku^ ii. 750; ii.
231 5 Marasid, iL 85 ; Khatib, 79 a, 103 a.

X.]

The Harlnyah Quarter

125

of Juijdn in Khurisin, a freedman of the Caliph
MansAr, and Ibn Abu *Awn, his son, was twice
Governor of Egypt, namely in the years 134 and
138 (a.d. 751 and 755). In the following century
another member of this family, M nham mgd ibn
Abu ‘Awn, commanded a body of troops in the
service of the Caliph Musta'in during the second
siege of Baghdad, namely in the year 251 (a.d.
865).

The highroad from the Upper Bridge of Boats to
the Syrian Gate of the Round City crossed diagonally
the eastern part of the great northern suburb, the
whole of which in early times had been known as the
Harblyah. In later times, however, the name Uar-
bl)rah came to be used in a more restricted sense, and
was applied solely to that part of the northern suburb
lying immediately below the Uarb Bridge, and which
was traversed by the road of the Uarb Gate. This
quarter by the fourth century (the tenth a.d.) came
to possess its own Friday mosque, which had originally
been built for an oratory by one of the Abbasid
princes during the Caliphate of Mutt*, who had had
some scruple in allowing congregational prayers to,
be said here. It was, therefore, only in the reign of
K^dir, namely in the month Rabi* II of the year
383 (a.d. 993), that a decree was obtained erecting
this minor mosque into a Jdmi* (as a great mosque
for the Friday prayers is termed); and Khattb,
writing in the following century, adds that he himself
had frequently attended the Friday prayers here.
When YikAt wrote in 623 (a.d. 1226), though many
of the surrounding quarters had in greater part then
fallen to ruin, the later Uarblyah, namely the suburb
of the Uarb Gate, remained a populous quarter.

126

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

shut in by its own wall, with the Friday mosque
and many well supplied markets. It stood, he adds,
‘like a township in the midst of tlie waste,’ and
a distance of almost two miles, covered by ruins,
separated it from the quarter of the Ba§rah Gate,
to which belonged the great Mosque of Manshr.
In the previous century, when Ibn Jubayr visited
the Idarbiyah, it is described as the highest up
of the then inhabited quarters of West Baghdad,
and beyond it there were only to be seen some
villages that were considered as outside the city
limits

The Canal of the Idarb Gate Road, as already
stated, was crossed at the Straw-merchants' Bridge
by the highroad going from the Upper Bridge of
Boats to the S5Tian Gate, and after passing the
suburb of Abu *Awn, this canal reached the two
quadrangles (Murabba'ah) named respectively after
Abu-l-‘Abbis and Shablb, through which it took its
course before finally discharging its waters into the
Canal of the Syrian Gate. Abu-l-‘Abbis of Tfis, or
of Abiward (both well-known cities of Khuriseln),
after whom the first quadrangle took its name, was
one of the nobles who attended the Caliph Mansfir ;
and his quadrangle occupied land where, before the
foundation of Baghdad, the ancient village of War-
ddnlyah had stood. Shablb, a native of Marv-ar-
Rfidh^ from whom the neighbouring quadrangle
took its name, is variously given by our authorities
as Ibn Wdj or Ibn Rdlj (the latter name, however,
is probably only a clerical error) ; he was a favourite

* Khatib, 102 b; Yakut, iL 234; Ibn Jubayr, 227.

® A couple of hundred miles south of Great Merv, and on the upper
stream of the Merv river.

X.]

The Harbtyah Quarter

127

ofificer of Mansfkr, and is known to history as the
slayer of the too powerful general Abu Muslim — to
whom the Abbasids had mainly owed their acces-
sion to the Caliphate — Shabib thus giving his
master a signal proof of devoted zeal for the
new dynasty

Another thoroughfare, which ran parallel with the
Idarb Gate Road, went across the older yarblyah,
coming down from the Iron Gate (B4b-al-yad!d).
This was known as the Dujayl Road (Shiri' Dujayl),
from the canal of that name which flowed along it,
having crossed the Tihirid Trench by a small
aqueduct known as the Conduit of the Cabin or Hut
('Abbirat-al-Kflkh), which spanned tlie Trench near
the Iron Gate on the side towards the Iflarb Gate.
After passing for some distance down the Dujayl
Road the watercourse reached the Quadrangle
of the Persians (Murabba*at-al-Furs), where a branch
canal went off to the place known as the Shops of
the Persian Nobles (DukkSn-al-Abni) ; but whether
this minor canal struck off to the right or to the left
is not known, and before long it ran dry, having no
exit from the quarter. The Harblyah, as has already
been said, was originally for the most part settled by
the Persian followers of the Abbasids, and both the
places just named recall this fact. The Persian
Quadrangle is described as having been situated at
no great distance from the Quadrangle of Abu-1-
‘Abbds, already described, and it was so called in
memory of certain Persians, to whom the Caliph
Manstlr had here granted fiefs. The quarter round
it was known as the Suburb of the Persians (Rabad-

^ Yakut, iii. 489 ; iv. 485 ; Khatib, folio 79 a, b ; Baladhuri, 296 ;
Ibn-al-Athir, v. 363.

128

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

al-Furs), and adjacent thereto was the Khuw^lriz-
mtyah Suburb, where the troops from Khuwirizm
(the modern Khiva) had been settled by Manser,
while the quarter of the men of Merv (called Al-
Mariwizah) lay next to this.

The suburb called the Rabad 'Othmin ibn Nuhayk,
which was included in the quarter of the Khuwiriz-
mians, took its name from a certain *Othman who
was captain of the Horse Guards in the reign of
Man§Ar ; and Rushayd, another of the freedmen of
this Caliph, gave his name to the adjacent Raba<J
Rushayd. In addition to these, Yakiit gives the
names of various other suburbs of this quarter,
which were called after the nobles, to whom the
lands here had originally been granted in fief by
Man§fir and his successors. The Abni, from whom
the shops (Dukkin) above mentioned took their
name, are said to have been Persian nobles who had
adopted Arab nationality, for the term Abnd (the
plural in Arabic of Ibti) is explained as meaning the
‘ sons of the Dihl^ns.’ These Dihkins were the old
territorial Persian chiefs who were already settled
in Mesopotamia at the time of the Moslem conquest,
many of whom having accepted Islam were left in
peaceable possession of their lands, and under the
Abbasid Caliphs were employed in the various offices
or government Diwcins

The Dujayl Road Canal, after traversing these
various Persian fiefs, turned off at right angles, flowing
down towards the Syrian Gate, and first passed under
the bridge called the Kantarah-Abu-l-Jawn. This
took its name from the Dihkdn or Persian noble who

* Ibn Serapion, 27; Yakut, ii. 750, 751 ; iv. 480, 485 ; Mas'udi, iv.
188; Mafatih-al-Ulum, 119.

X.]

The Harbtyah Quarter

129

had owned the village of Sharafiniyah that had
occupied this site before Baghdad was built; and
some palms which had belonged to the old village
were still standing near this bridge in the year 450
(a.d. 1058), close to which stood the palace (Ddr) of
a certain Sa*id-al-Khattb. The Abu-l-Jawn Bridge
in all probability was on the Dujayl road, near
■where it joined the highroad which ran direct from
the Syrian Gate up into the Harbiyah Quarter.
Ya'kflbt names this the Market of the Sjmian Gate,
and here all kinds of wares and merchandise were
to be found exposed for sale in the shops, both to
right and to left, along the thoroughfare, from which
also numerous streets branched into neighbouring
courts and alleys, each being named after the
people of the province from which its inhabitants
had origfinally come. Near the Abu-l-Jawn Bridge
stood the Orphan School (Kuttib-al-Yatam 4 ) ; and
here a transverse watercourse struck off from the
canal of the Dujayl highroad, flowing into the canal
of the IJarb Gate highroad (already described),
which latter it joined at the Quadrangle of Shablb.
This Connecting branch canal, therefore, must have
crossed under both the Market of the Syrian Gate
and the highroad running from the Upper Bridge of
Boats to the Syrian Gate, probably by culverts near
the Sh 4 blb Quadrangle

On or near the highroad to the Upper Bridge of

^ Ibn Serapion, 27; Khatib, 79b; Ya'kubi, 248; Tabari, Hi. 279;
Yakut, iii. 277. In the MSS. of Khatib the name of Abu-l-Jawn is
often incorrectly written Abu-l-/i2wa. In my translation of Ibn
Serapion {J. JR, A. S., 1895, p. 294) for ‘Scribes’ read School of the
Orphans. The word KtctiSi, as Professor De Goeje has pointed out
to me, has evidently here this meaning, and is not to be taken as the
plural of Kdiib, ‘ scribe.’

BAGBnAD K

t3o Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Boats, and in a line between the Quadrangle of
Shabib and the Syrian Gate, stood three Tikit —
archways or arcades — which were called after their
several builders. The nearest of these to the Quad-
rangle of Shabib^ into which it led by a thoroughfare,
was the Tikdt-al-'Akki, which gave its name to the
street called Sikkat-al-‘Akki, having been built by a
certain Muk^til, of the Yamanite tribe of *Akk, one
of the generals of the Caliph MansGr, from whom
Mukitil had received the grant of a fief in this
quarter. This is said to have been the first of the
arcades to be built in Baghdad, and next to it came
the T cLklit-al-Ghitrif. Ghitrif was at one time governor
of the Yaman province, he being brother of the
Princess Khayzurdn, mother of the two Caliphs Hidt
and Hirdn-ar-Rashid, to whom therefore Ghi^if
stood in the relationship of maternal uncle. The
Ghitrif archways were the second of those built in
Baghdad, and adjacent to them were the Tdkdt Abu
Suwayd, the latest to be built. These occupied the
fief and suburb of Abu Suwayd, surnamed A1 J^lrhd,
and they traversed part of the cemetery which lay
immediately outside the Syrian Gate.

The S 5 rrian Gate of the City of Manshr gave
egress to the three principal highroads traversing
the northefto suburbs of West Baghdad, two of w^hich
have already been mentioned. On the right went
the road to the Upper Bridge of Boats with the
archways just described ; and next this came the
road into the Harbiyah Quarter, which is known as
the Market of the Syrian Gate ; while on the left
was the highroad going tovrards the Anbir Gate on
the Trench of Tdhir. Fronting the Syrian Gate
stood the great jail, built by the Caliph MansGr, and

xj The Harbiyah Quarter 131

known as the Prison of the Syrian Gate. Down to
the latter half of the third century (the ninth a. d.)
this continued to be the chief jail of West Baghdad,
for in the year 255 (a.d. 869), when Sulaymin the
Tdhirid was governor of Baghdad (the Caliphs then
being resident at Simarri), the chronicle relates how
this prison was broken open by the mob during an
insurrection, and much trouble ensued in the recap-
ture of the malefactors who had escaped. The
adjacent Cemetery of the Syrian Gate is stated
to have been the earliest of the burial grounds in
West Baghdad, having been laid out by Mansiir
after he had finished the Round City. In course
of time much of its area came to be built over by
the houses of the Idarbiyah and adjacent quarters,
though as late as the beginning of the fourth
century (the tenth a.d.) mention is made of this
cemetery as a place where personages of note
were still buried.

In front of the Syrian Gate, and across the ceme-
tery, ran the small canal so often mentioned, which
came up from the Khfah Gate and ultimately lost
itself in the lower limits of the Zubaydiyah Fief to
the northward. Into this canal, at some distance to
the right of the gate towards the Tigris bank, flowed
the surplus waters of the Canal of the Harb Gate
Road, while to the left of the gate flowed in the
discharge of the Canal of the Dujayl Road. The
lower portion of the Canal of the Dujayl Road,
after turning down past the Orphan School (already
described), must have crossed through culverts under
both the highroad of the Market of the Syrian Gate
and the road leading to the AnbSr Gate, after
passing behind (to the north-west of) the prison.

K 2

132 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

Near here must have been the Road of the Palace
of Hant (Shelri* Ra§r Hint), mentioned by Ibn
Serapion, next to which on the canal came the
Garden of Al-Kass in the suburb of that name,
said to have been called after a freedman of the
Caliph Manshr^

The highroad from the Syrian Gate to the Anbir
Gate would appear to have passed to the north of
the Garden of Kass, and it probably ran between
this and the Palace of HAnl above mentioned. The
great triangular space of ground lying between the
three points marked by the KAfah, the Syrian, and
the Anbir Gates — and which was bounded by the
Little Sarit and part of the Sjnrian Gate Canal on
two sides, with the yarbiyah Quarter on the third —
was occupied by a number of roads and crossroads,
which appear to have come in the following order.
Beginning from the Trench of Tihir at the Anbdr
Gate, the Anbfir highroad, as already stated, led direct
to the Syrian Gate of the City of Man§(ir, and along
its upper part ran the water-channel which retained
the name of the BatStiy^l Canal, and which had
crossed the Trench by the Bridge of the Anbir
Gate. This channel, after passing some short way

^ Ibn Serapion, 27; YaTcubi, 241, 247, 248; 'Arib, 47; Khatib,
folio mb; Yakut, iii. 488, 489; Ibn-al-Athir, vii. 137. The name
is also written and it is somewhat puzzling to find that

according to Taliari (iii. 274) there was already a ‘ Bust&n-al-^ss,’
near Baghdad, before the Moslem city was founded. -Further, there
was a Dayr or monastery, the he^d of which gave the Caliph
Mansfir advice in the matter of the site for the projected capital In
this passage Bustdnrcd-^ass would appear to mean simply ‘the
Priest’s Garden,’ the last word not being taken as a proper name,
and this recalls a former passage in Tabari (iii. 273), where mention
is made of the Bcgf'ak ^ass (without the article), presumably the
‘ Priest’s Churdi.’

X.]

The Harblyah Quarter

133

down the Anbir Road, turned off and finally lost
itself in what is known as the Road of the Ram
(Shiri-al-Kabsh), which appears to have been a
thoroughfare branching from the Anbdr Road, im-
mediately within the gate, and running down towards
the bank of the Little $arcLt Canal.

The quarter here was known as Al-Kabsh-wa- 1 -
Asad (the Ram and the Lion), and as late as the
beginning of the fifth century (the eleventh a.d.)
the houses and streets of the suburbs of West
Baghdad, on the highroad towards Anb^, extended
as far as this line. Soon after that date, however,
the region came to be deserted, for Khattb states
that while in his youth this region had still been
occupied by many houses, and had even possessed
a crowded market, yet when in later life, namely
about the year 450 (a.d. 1058), he had come to visit
the place, only arable fields were then to be seen
lying at a considerable distance from the neares:
houses of the suburb. In explanation of its curious
name, Ydkfit writes that the Ram and the Lion
originally represented two separate streets leading
into the neighbouring suburb of the Nasriyah, but
which in his day had long since disappeared. The
tomb of Ibrihim-al-Harbi stood in this quarter, on
the highroad at no great distance from the Anbir
Gate, and it is spoken of by Mas'fidl in the fourth
century (the tenth a. d.) in connexion with these
streets of the Ram and the Lion, when mentioning
a burial which took place in the cemetery near the
Anbir Gate, Ibrihlm-al-Idarbl (that is of the yar-
biyah Quarter) had been a celebrated traditionist,
and became a saint, whose shrine was a notable
place of visitation. He had been one of the most

134 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

famous of the pupils of Ibn yanbal, the great Sunni
Imdm, and dying in the year 285 (a.d. 898) was
buried in his own house, which stood on the AnbS.r
Road^ His tomb still existed as late as the year
700 (a.d. 1300), but at that date, as was to be
expected from the account of this quarter already
quoted from Khatlb, the author of the Mardsid states
that it had come to stand solitary in the midst of
the fields, all the neighbouring houses having long
ago disappeared.

Among the fiefs of this suburb, detailed by Ya'khbi,
two other roads are mentioned, namely the Road
of the Cages (Darb-al-Akfts) and the Fullers’ Road
(Darb-al-Kassdrin), and adjacent thereto stood the
Bukhariot Mosque (Masjid-al-Bukhiriyah), celebrated
for its green minaret. According to Tabari, the
Road of the Cages occupied the site of a village
called Al-Khattibiyah, that had existed here before
the Caliph Manshr began to build the Round City,
the site of which originally stretched as far as the
neighbouring gate of the Darb-an-Nhrah (the Chalk
Road), Some of the ancient palm-trees of the village
were still growing here at the close of the second
century (the eighth a. d.) in the reign of Amin ; and
from the author of the Mardsid we learn tliat the
Khattclbiyah had stood on the bank of the Little
§ar§.t, near where the Ram and Lion Quarter, with
the tomb of Ibrdhim-al-Harbi, afterwards came to
be built. Finally, beyond this, and probably on the
northern side of the Anbir Road, lay the open space
known as the Ramaliyah (the Sandy Place), for this

^ In Marasid, ii. S5, line 8, the words ‘ Bib-al-Anbir of the City of
Al-Mansur’ must undoubtedly be a mistake for B^-ash*SMm^ the
Syrian Gate, of the Round City*

X.]

The Harhiyah Quarter

135

was the boundary of the I^arbiyah in the direction
of the Anbdr Gate, at the time when Ya'khbi wrote,
namely at the close of the third century (the
ninth a.d.) \

^ Ibn Serapion, 27 ; Khatib, folio 67 a ; Ya'kubi, 247, 248 ; Yakut,

ii. 235; iv. 233; Marasid, i. 358; ii. 85; Masudi, viii. 184; Tabari,

iii. 279.

CHAPTER XI

THE QUARTERS OF THE MUHAWWAL GATE

The Four Markets. The Nasrlyah Quarter. The 'Attdbiyah
Quarter; its watered silks and papermakers. The Dir-al-Kazz or
the Silk House. The Upper Barley Gate. The 'Atikiyah Suburb:
the Kahtabah Road and Suburb. The Palace of 'Abd-al-Wahh§,b
and his Suburb. The *Abbdsiyah Island. The Patrician's Mill,
The story of the Greek Patrician. The Muhawwal Road. The Fief
of ‘tsi. and the Muhawwal Gate. The Suburb of Hayldnah. The
Suburb of liumayd, son of Kahtabah. Bridges of the Mills, of China,
and of *AbblLs, leading to the ^Abbdsiyah Island. The Bridge of the
Greeks and the Fief of the Farrishes. The Old Tank. The Bridges
on the Great Sarit and Karkhiyi. The Kundsah and the Market
for Beasts of Burden. The Ydsiriyah Quarter.

The Garden of Kass, on the lowest reach of the
Dujayl Road Canal, has already been mentioned,
and near this stood the Four Markets, which was
the centre of one of the most populous quarters of
West Baghdad.

These Four Markets were known under the
Persian- Arabic name of the Shir Sik, or the Shahir
Shj — the first word being the Persian numeral
ChaMr, ' four,’ with Suj for Sttk, in Arabic meaning
‘ a market ’ — and they had been built by a certain
Al-Haytham, a Tiative of Khurisin, a captain of
troops in the days of the Caliph Man§fir, after whom
the place was also called by the Arabs the Sfik

flap Yl. I'o ft»cf pafte^ao

MUHAWWAL ROAD

REFERENCES TO MAP No. VI.

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The Quarters of the Muhawwal Gate 137

(or Market of) Al-Ha)^ham. From the time of
its foundation it became a great emporium of mer-
chandise, being soon surrounded by streets and
lanes with warehouses, forming a quarter by itself.
In the middle of the fourth century (the tenth a,d.)
the Four Markets were apparently rebuilt, for they
are mentioned by Hamd-Allah as among the cele-
brated constructions undertaken by the Bu)rid Prince
'Adud-ad-Dawlah. Near the. Four Markets stood
a minaret which Khatib mentions as having been
built here by Idumayd ibn ‘Abd-al-Idamld, who
owned the Kasr I^umayd on the Tigris bank, near
the Lower Bridge of Boats, which has already
been described. The suburb of the Four Markets
stood at some little distance to the south-west
of the older Idarbiyah, and round it, connected
by market streets, lay three other quarters, which
are frequently mentioned in the later history of
Baghdad, namely the Nasriyah, the ‘Att&blyah, and
the Dir-al-Kazz (the Silk House). At the time
when Ydkht wrote — namely in 623 (a.d. 1226) —
these were still very populous quarters, being then
chiefly celebrated for the manufacture of an excel-
lent kind of paper ; but all round them lay the ruins
of former suburbs marked by the lines of deserted
streets and fallen houses.

The Nasriyah, otherwise called the Suburb of
Nasr ibn 'Abd- Allah, must have occupied a con-
siderable extent of ground. A tlioroughfare led
thence towards the Dujayl highroad, but there is
some question as to its exact position. The ‘Atti-
blyah or 'Attibiyln Quarter, which lay to the north
of the Four Markets, was famous for the manu-
facture of the ‘Attdbi stuffs, woven of mixed silk

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

and cotton in variegated colours, which were cele-
brated throughout all Moslem countries. The
‘Attclbiyah Quarter perpetrated the name of ‘Att^b,
great-grandson of Omajryah (the ancestor of the
Omayyad Caliphs), and ‘Attib, who was a con-
temporary of the Prophet, had been named by
Muhammad to be Governor of Mecca, a post which
he also continued to hold during the reign of the
Caliph Abu Bakr. The quarter of Baghdad which
bore his name appears to have been occupied by
his descendants who had settled here at an unknown
period, and the name of the ‘Att^biyin afterwards
obtained a world-wide renown by reason of the silk
stuffs which were first manufactured in this suburb
I bn Jubayr in 580 (a.d. 1184) mentions the 'Attd-
biyin as one of the most flourishing parts of West
Baghdad in his day ; and a street called the Shiri'-

^ This name has had a long life. The 'Att^bi silks became famous
throughout the Moslem world, and were imitated in other towns.
Idrisi in 548 (a.d. 1153) describes Almeria in Southern Spain as in
his time possessing eight hundred looms for silk-weaving, and the
'Attibi stuffs are particularly mentioned among those that were there
manufactured. The name passed into Spanish under the form attabi,
and thence to Italian and French as tabis^ The name iqby for a rich
kind of silk is now obsolete in English, but in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries the word was in common use. In February,
1603, when Elizabeth received the Venetian envoy Scaramelli, the
Queen is described as wearing ‘a dress of silver and white taby’
(vestita di tabi argento et bianco). The diary of Samuel Pepys
records how on October 13, i66i, he wore his ‘false-taby waiste-
coate with gold lace’; and a century later Miss Burney, on
the occasion of the birthday of the Princess Royal at Windsor,
September 29, 1786, appeared in a gown of ‘lilac tabby.’ Dr.
Johnson gives the spelling tabby in his dictionary, and explains it as
‘ a kind of waved silk,’ adding that the tabby cat is so named from
the brindled markings of the fur. It is certainly curious that the
common epithet applied to a cat in modern English should be derived
from the name of a man who was a Companion of the Prophet
Muhammad and governor of Mecca in the seventh century a,d.

XI.] The Quarters of the Mukawwal Gate 139

al-Ghimish connected this quarter with the neigh-
bouring Dir-al-l^azz, in which thoroughfare had
stood a mosque for the Friday prayers, but this in
the year 700 (a.d. 1300) had already fallen tq ruins.

The quarter of the Ddr-al-Kazz or Silk House
is described by Ydktlt as a large suburb which in
his day stood a league distant from the quarters
of West Baghdad at the Basrah Gate. In the
seventh century (the thirteenth a.d.) it was sur-
rounded by mounds of rubbish and ruins ; but the
paper manufactured here continued to be feimous
throughout the East. Apparently in early times
a second or Upper Barley Gate (Bib-ash-Sh 4 'ir) ^
had stood in the neighbourhood of the Silk House,
on the side towards the T^hirid Hartm. There is,
however, evidently some confusion in the accounts.
Yikht, who says that this gate had completely
disappeared in his time, describes it as having been
the centre of a quarter lying on the Tigris above
the City of Manshr, at the place where the ships
from Mosul and Basrah came to their moorings —
in other words, at the Upper Harbour. The shifting
of the river bed may account for some of the diffi-
culty in fixing the position of the Upper Barley
Gate, but it is not easy to understand how, if indeed
this gate had been near the Silk House of the
'Attdblyah Quarter, it could have stood on the Tigris
bank and adjacent to the Tihirid Harim.

Another quarter, the position of which cannot be
very clearly defined, but which appears to have
been of this same neighbourhood, was that known
as .the 'Atlkiyah, which when Yikht wrote was

^ For the other Barley Gate, near the Lower Bridge of Boats, see
l>- 95-

140 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

already in ruin. He describes it as having stood
between the Harbiyah and the later Quarter of the
Ba§rah Gate — ^possibly within the ruins of what had
originally been the City of Man^tlr — ^and it was
named after a certain 'Atik ibn Halil the Persian \

From the neighbourhood of the Garden of !l^ass,
and doubtless communicating directly with the Four
Markets, thence leading down to the square in
front of the KOfah Gate, ran ■ the thoroughfare
known as the Kahtabah Road (Shiri'-al-Ku^^itibah,
for the plural form of the name is used), which
traversed the suburb of Hasan ibn Kahtabah.
The Kahtabah family had taken a prominent
part in the events which led to the accession of
the Abbasids, and fiefs were granted by the
Caliph Mansir to more than one member of this
house. Kahtabah, father of Hasan and Humayd,
had been one of those zealous partisans or mission-
aries who, in Omay^'ad days, had publicly preached
the right of the house of 'Abbis to the Caliphate ;
but he lost his life before the time came for the
full realization of his hopes, being drowned while
crossing the Euphrates at the head of his troops
in the year 132 (a.d. 749). His son Hasan suc-
ceeded to the command of the Abbasid army, and
in time effected the conquest of Mesopotamia for
his masters. He stood In high favour with Man§6r,
and only died in the year 18 1 (a.d. 797), under the
reign of Hir£in-ar-Rashfd. The fief in West Baghdad
that had been granted him, and through which the

^ Ya'kubi, 247 j Khatib, folio Sob; Yakut, i. 445 ; ii. 167, 522, 751 ;
iii. 614; iv. 786; Ibn Jubayr, 227; Marasid, i. 112; ii. 85; Suyuti,
175 ; Guzidah, book iv, section 5, reign of 'Adud-ad-Dawlah. This
‘AtiMyah must not be confounded with the ‘Ati^h suburb, mentioned
P-90.

XI.] The Quarters of the Muhawwal Gate 141

Ifahtabah Road lay, stretched along a quadrant of
the wall of the Round City from outside the Khfah
Gate to near the Syrian Gate.' Up this road and
parallel with the line of the wall ran the Canal
of the Syrian Gate, already so often mentioned,
which, at the beginning of the fourth century (the
tenth A.D.), according to Ibn Serapion, threw off
a channel to the right, that passed ‘in among the
remains of the City of Manser/ showing that at
this date the wall of the Round City had already
fallen to ruin.

On the other side of the Kahtabah Road, and
lying along the lower part of the Little $arlLt Canal,
was the Palace and Fief of 'Abd-al-Wahhdb, nephew
of the Caliph Man§ilr. Near by stood the Market
of ‘Abd-al-Wahhdb (as already mentioned, p. 59),
at no great distance from the Square of the Khfah
Gate, and the market street appears to have con-
nected the Ifahtabah Road with the Khfah Gate
Square. The whole of this suburb must have fallen
to ruin at an early date, for Ibn Abi Mariyam — who
died in 224 (a.d. 839) — writes that when passing
across it he found all the houses fallen in and
deserted, and Ya‘k6bl, half a century later, states
that both palace and market had in his time almost
entirely disappeared

The channel of the Little Sarit, along the lower
course of which the *Abd-al-Wahh^Lb Fief stretched,
was, as already stated, a loop canal of the Great
§arit, and compared with it must have been an
insigpiificant stream, as is shown by the fact that
no bridges were needed for the roads to cross it.
The Little §ardt began at the TShirid Trench (a

* Ta'kubi, 242, 246, 247; Ibn Serapion, 25; Khatib, folio 80 a.

142

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

short distance below where this last left the parent
stream of the Great $arit), and took its course
through the garden lands on the outskirts of Baghdad,
flowing back finally into the Great Sarit not far
above the Old Bridge in front of the K<ifah Gate
Square. The island thus included between the
Great and the Little Sarit was known as the
‘Abbislyah, and immediately above where the two
streams ultimately came together lay the water-mills
called Ruhi-al-Batrik, or the Patrician’s Mill. The
'Abbisiyah Island took its name from Al-'Abbis,
brother of the. Caliph Man§iir, to whom it had been
granted in fief. He laid it out in gardens and corn-
lands, which became celebrated for their fertility,
for, in the words of a contemporary account, ‘ at no
time, neither by summer nor by winter, did its crops
ever fail.’

The great mill which stood at the junction of the
two Sarits is said originally to have possessed one
hundred millstones, and produced in yearly rent
the fabulous sum of one hundred million dirhams
(say ;^4, 000,000). The mill had received its name,
according to the earlier authorities, from a certain
Byzantine Patrician who had come to Baghdad as
ambassador from the Greek Emperor, and who,
having a knowledge of engineering, had built it to
please the Caliph, Such is the account given by
Ya'k^ibl, written in 278 (a.d. 891), but the building
is also sometimes referred to as the Mill of Abu
Ja'far, that is to say of the Caliph Manser ; and
occasionally, though apparently in error, we find it
named the Mill of Umm Ja'far, who is the princess
Zubaydah, the celebrated wife of HirAn-ar-Rashld ^

' Yakut, iv. 522; Marasid, ii. 485; and compare Tabari, iii. 887.

XI.] The Quarters of the Muhaijowal Gate 143

This confusion in the name is probably accountable
for the assertion by Khattb in one place that it was
the Abbasid Prince ‘Isd (uncle of the Caliph MansUr),
and according to the generally received account the
digger of the *lsi Canal, who had been the founder
also of these mills. In another passage, however,
Khatib (and Yikllt copies both statements from
him) gives a long anecdote, in which the building
of the mills is attributed to die Greek Patrician
who came as ambassador from Constantinople to
Baghdad.

The name of the Greek envoy is here stated to
have been Tirdth, fifth in descent from Mar6k, who
had been Emperor of the Greeks in die days of
the Caliph Mu'iwiyah (in point of fact Constans II
and Constantine IV were the contemporaries of
Mu'iwiyah), and this Tirith had come to Baghdad
to convey to the Caliph Mahdi, on his accession, the
congratulations of the Byzantine Caesar. The date,
therefore, must have been about the year 158
(a.d. 775 )> when Mahdi succeeded his father MansGr.
The anecdote begins by relating how in former days
the Caliph Man§6r had granted a garden on the
$arit Canal to his chamberlain Rabi' (already
mentioned in connexion with another Greek am-
bassador, see p. 65), and how this garden, which
produced most excellent dates and other fruits, had
in due time come to be inherited by Fadl, son of
Rabi', who, succeeding to his father s honours, served
the Caliph Mahdi as Wazlr. The Greek envoy

There was also a Mill of Umm-Ja'far, or Zubaydah, on the THhirid
Trench in the Zubaydiyah Fief (see above, p. 113). Khatib, folio 86 a.
from whom Yakut gets his information, gives the name as Abu Ja'far,
i. e. the Caliph Mansilr.

144

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

having duly presented his message of congratulation
remained for some time in Baghdad as the guest
of the Caliph Mahdl, and ultimately being much
pleased with his reception, offered in gratitude to
build a great mill on the Sarit. By order of the
Caliph the Waztr Fadl supplied the sum of half
a million dirhams (say _;^20,ooo) for building ex-
penses, and it was promised that the mills would
produce this same sum yearly in clear profit from
the rents paid by the millers. This proving to be
the case, the Caliph was so much gratified that
he ordered the whole of this rent to be paid over
in free gift to the envoy ; and even after the latter
had returned to Constantinople the sum was year
after year transmitted to him there, down to the
date of his death, which occurred in 163 (a.d. 780),
after which time, by order of the Caliph, the rent
was kept back and expended in the maintenance
of the estate.

Whatever may be the grain of truth in this anec-
dote, there can be no doubt that the mills existed
in the year 197 (a.d. 813), for they are mentioned
as having suffered some damage during the first
siege of Baghdad, when Tihir, after driving the
unfortunate Caliph Amin within the walls of the
Round City, demolished and burnt many of the houses
in this and the neighbouring quarters. Apparently,
however, the mills were then not permanently
injured, for they were in working order down to
the close of the third century (the ninth a.d.), when
Ya'kfibi and Ibn Serapion wrote their descriptions
of Baghdad. When, indeed, the mills fell to ruin
does not seem to be mentioned in the chronicles,
but in the year 700 (a.d. 1300) the author of the

XI.] The Quarters of the Muhawwal Gate 145

Mardsid in -writing his epitome of YdkAt, remarks
that no trace of them was then to be seen.

As militating against the story that it was the
Greek envoy of the days of Mahdl who first built
these mills, it must be stated that Tabari, when
narrating the events which led to the foundation of
Baghdad by Manshr, particularly mentions a certain
Batrik as among those who offered the Caliph advice
in the matter of the site, and Tabari adds that this
was the builder of the mill of the Batrik. From
the context, however, where mention is made of the
Christian monastery {Dayr) on the Tigris bank,
near the site of the later Palace of the Khuld,
it is evident that in this passage Batrik has the
signification not of ‘ Patrician ’ but of ‘ Patriarch
and the mills would therefore appear to have
dated from times previous to the Abbasid Cali-
phate, and to ha-!/e been the work of Nestorian
Christians.

Immediately below the junction of the Little
$arat with the Great SarSt, the Old Bridge carriea
the highroad from the Kfifah Gate across the canal,
and here, a short distance beyond the bridge, the
way bifurcated. That to the left was the great
Khfah highroad leading south through the Karkh
Quarter, which has been described in chapters v
and vi : we have now to deal with the road to the
right, which, turning westward and passing through
the lands lying between the upper reach of the

’ According to the dictionaries, ‘Patriarch’ ought to be rendered
by Batrak or Batrik (with the 7#«dotted k), this being the proper
Arabic equivalent of the Greek XLttrpmpyr^s ; while * Patrician * is in
Arabic Batrtk (with the dotted k), this standing for narpinos. Ibn
Serapion, 24 ; Ya'kubi, 243 ; Yakut, ii. 759 ; Khatib, folios 86 a, b, 8. a, b ;
Marasid, i. 463 ; Tabari, iii. 274, 887.

h

BAGBDjU)

146 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Great Sarit and the Karkhiyd Canal, was the first
portion of the highroad from Baghdad to Anbdr on
the Euphrates. This was known as the Muhawwal
Road, from the name of the first town on it, called
Al-Muhawwal, which lay one league out from
Baghdad on the banks of the 'Isi Canal.

Near the bifurcation from the Khfah Road, the
Muhawwal Road at first skirted the Fief and Palaces
of Prince 'ls 4 , uncle of the Caliph Manshr, who,
according to the usually accepted account, had
dug the 'Isi Canal, and these buildings with their
grounds occupied the space between the road and
the Sarit Canal. Beyond lay other fiefs, and then
the road passed under the great vaulted gateway,
known as the Bib-al-Muhawwal, which gave its
name to the whole of the neighbouring quarter.
The Muhawwal Gate appears to have stood un-
injured for fully five centuries, for it existed in
the time of the last Abbasid Caliph, and long
after the neighbouring Khfah Gate of the City
of Manshr had disappeared with the ruin of West
Baghdad. Yikit arid the author of the Mar&sid,
as late as the year 700 (a.d. 1300), both speak of it
as the centre of the great quarter, then inhabited
entirely by Sunnis, which stood like a separate
^ownship with its own mosque, and its markets that
were still much frequented. Forming part of this
quarter and towards Karkh — probably on the
opposite side of the Muhawwal Road to the 'ls<L
Fief just mentioned — came the suburb of Hayldnah,
called after the Greek slave named Helena, who
is said to have been a favourite concubine of
Hirhn-ar-Rashid, and the stewardess of the Harim.
A tank also called after her will be mentioned in

XI.] The Quarters of the Muhawwal Gate 147

a later chapter when East- Baghdad comes to be
described.

After passing through the Muhawwal Gate the
highroad came to the suburb of idumayd, which
extended for some distance beyond the gate, going
across from the upper reach of the Great Sarit on
the right hand down to the Karkhiyil Canal on
the left, where this last was spanned by the Hospital
Bridge ; and the Razln Canal, which here branched
from the Karkhiyi, is described as having traversed
the lower part of the Humayd Suburb. This suburb
took its name from Humayd, son of Kahtabah,
whose brother Hasan has already been spoken of
as possessing the fiefs along the ICafitabah Road
between the Kfifah and the Syrian Gates. Humayd,
like his brother, was a favourite noble of Mansdr,
and as has been mentioned on a former page, he
was the general dispatched by the Caliph to crush
the Alid insurrection which had broken out in
Medina at the time when Baghdad was being
founded. Having successfully disposed of the rebels,
Humayd returned to Baghdad, where he was re-
warded by the gift of this fief, and afterwards, in
the year 143, the Caliph appointed him Governor
of Egypt, though he kept the post for little more
than a year (a.d, 760 to 762). Humayd at a later
date was named Governor of KhurSsin and died
in the year 159 {a.d. 776). The Humayd Suburb

^ He resided at Tfis— the ruins of which exist at the present day,
not far from Meshed — in the neighbourhood of which he built his
great palace. It is described as having covered a square mile of
ground ; and here at a later date, in part of its gardens, the Caliph
Hllr{in-ar-Rashid was buried, also the Im^m of the Shfahs, ‘All-ar-
Rid^, whose shrine is still the most venerated sanctuary in modern
Persia, being the chief mosque in Meshed, the capital of Khurds^n.

L 2

148 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

is described as having its principal thoroughfare
lying along the upper reach of the Great Sarit, and
it must have extended over and across the lower
part of the Island of the 'Abbislyah, for on the
northern side it was coterminous with the Nasriyah
and the Four Markets in the Suburb of Haytham,
both of which quarters lay on the further side of
the Little Sarfit. Unlike these, however, which con-
tinued to be flourishing and populous quarters down
to a late time, the Humayd Suburb had fallen to
ruin, probably before the close of the fourth century
(the tenth a. d.) \

The 'Abbislyah Island, the lower part of which was
occupied by the Uumayd Suburb, on the one side
was bounded Jby the Little Sar^it, a watercourse, as
has already been described, so small as to need no
bridges for the roads to cross it. On the other side,
however, where the upper reach of the Great Sarit
formed the boundary, three bridges gave access to
the island from the quarters along the Muhaw^wal
highroad. The lowest of these stood close to the
Patrician’s Mill, from which it took its name (Kan-
tarah Ruh&-al-Batrik), being also known as Rantarah-
az-Zubd (the Butter Bridge), but there is some doubt
about the pronunciation and meaning of this name.
The next bridge above this was the Rantarah-as-
$lniy^t, which may signify the Porcelain Bridge,
being the Arab name for China, both the country
and its most notable ware. Possibly, however,
the name is of Aramaic origin, in which case it
would signify the Bridge of the Date-palms, and
As-Sin with this sense is a name common to other

' Ya*kubi, 244; Ibn Serapion, 25; Yakut, i. 451; ii. 750, 752; iii.
201, 560; iv. 255 ; Marasid, i. 113.

XI.] The Quarters of the Muhawwal Gate 149

places in Lower Mesopotamia The highest up of
the three bridges was the Kantarah-al-'AbbAs,
doubtless so called after the brother of the Caliph
Manshr, from whom the 'Abbislyah Island took its
name ; and from each of these three bridges streets
must have gone down from the island to the
Muhawwal Road.

This last, as soon as the Muhawwal Gate had
been passed, had on the left hand and lying between
the roadway and the Karkhdy^ Canal, the Fief
of the Farrishes or Carpet-spreaders (Katl'at-al-
Farrishin), otherwise known as the House of the
Greeks (Ddr-ar-Rhmiyfn). This is the account given
by Ya'khbi in 278 (a.d. 891), who adds that the
Karkhiyi was here crossed by the Bridge of the
Greeks (Klantarah-ar-Rhmiyln), a name recalling
the Bridge of the Greek Woman (Kantarah-ar-Rdml-
yah), which Ibn Serapion mentions as lying on the
Nahr 'tsi; and it seems probable that this Bridge
of the Greek Woman on the parallel canal was con-
nected by a road with the Bridge of the Greeks
on the Karkh 4 y 4 . After traversing the Humayd
Suburb, and leaving the Fief of the Farrdshes or
of the Greeks on the left, the Mulfeiawwal Road
approached the bank of the Karkhdyi Canal ; and all
along this part of the highway there were shops to
right and left, forming a market that was plentifully
supplied with wares of all kinds. At the further
end of this (probably lying on the right-hand side,
for the canal was to the left) the Muhawwal Road

^ Yakut (iii. 378) in place of *As-Stnly^t ’ gives A^-SabUdt^ and he
copies the whole of this passage from Ibn Serapion. His reading,
however, is probably a clerical error, for all the MSS. of Khatib give
the hrst reading.

150 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

came to the Old Tank (Al-Hawd-al-'Atik), round
which were grouped the houses belonging to certain
Persians, the followers of Shih ibn Sahl, killed in
223 (a.d. 838), who had been a favourite noble of
the Caliph Mu'ta§im.

Near this point the Karkhdyd Canal was crossed
by the Bridge of the Street of Rocks (Kantarah
Darb-al-IJij£irah), where a branch road must have
turned off to the left, while beyond this came the
highest up of the bridges which crossed the Kar-
khiyi, namely the Ifantarah-al-Yahtid or the Jews’
Bridge (some MSS. of Khatib add ‘of the Jews’
Fief’), near to which stood the gate called the
BAb Abu Rablsah^. This gate and bridge on the
canal were near an open space on the Muhawwal
Road, known as Al-Kunisah, where, as the name
implies, lay great rubbish-heaps {Kundsah in Arabic
means ‘ a sweeping ’) ; here it was customary for those
who came in to the markets of Baghdad to tie up
their beasts of burden, and in the adjacent quarter
a market was held for the sale of camels, horses,
mules, and asses

At the time of the first siege of Baghdad, a great
battle extending over many days took place during
the latter part of the year 197 (a.d. 813) near the
Kunisah, between the partisans of the Caliph Amin
•and the troops of Tihir, who had his siege camp,
as already mentioned, outside the Anbir Gate on
the Trench, at the further side of the 'Abbdsiyah

^ This is the right pronunciation of the name, which in my transla-
tion of Ibn Serapion (p. 286) is incorrectly given in the diminutive
form — ‘ Abu-Kubaysah/

* Ibn Serapion, 14, 24, 25 ; Ya'kubi, 244 ; Yakut, ii. 914 ; iii. 378 ;
De Goeje in Z, D, M, 6^., xxxix, p. 9, note 4,

XI.] The Quarters of the Muhawwal Gate 151

Island. During the fight many of the neighbouring
quarters were set on fire, and in the account given
by Tabari mention is frequently made of the Kunisah
Quarter, with the Street of the Rocks (Darb-al-
yijirah), and the battle raged all along the line of
the KarkhciysL Canal down to the Suburb of Ijiumayd
and the Muhawwal Gate. In connexion with these
events Mas'hdi refers to the gate called the B 4 b-al-
Kunisah, which must either have stood on the
Muhawwal Road, or possibly may have been iden-
tical with the Bib Abu Kabisah (of Ibn Serapion),
already mentioned.

The houses in the outskirts of the Baghdad
suburbs extended as far as this point on the Kar-
khiyi Canal, which last is described as entering the
city limits at the Abu Kabisah Gate. On ,the 'Isi
Canal, near here, was the Yisirlyah Suburb, which
gave its name to the bridge called the KantaraH-
al- Yisirlyah, noted in chapter vi as the highest up
of those which crossed the Nahr 'Isi. The gate
of this suburb, called the Bib-al- Yisirlyah, is men-
tioned by Ibn Hawkal in 367 (a.d. 978) as the limit
of Baghdad in his time on the west, and he adds
that five miles of streets separated this point from
the limit of the houses on the other side, namely
at the Khurisin Gate of East Baghdad. Yiljtlt,
three centuries later, speaks of the Yisirtyah as
having come to be a village, in his day very famous
for its gardens, which lay on the 'isi Canal,. one
mile below the town of Muhawwal, and about two
miles from Baghdad, the latter distance being
probably reckoned from the Suburb of the Muhawwal
Gate. As late as the year 700 (a.d. 1300) the
Yisirlyah still existed, and the author of Xki^Mar&dd

152 Baghdad during the Caliphate

writes of the fine bridge which, as of old, here
spanned the 'Isi Canal. It is added that the
place had originally received its name from a
man called YUsir, of whom, however, no details
are given \

^ Tabari, iii. 865, 883 to 893; Masudi, vi. 445, 446; Ibn Hawkal,
165 ; Ibn Serapion, 14 ; Yakut, iv. 1002 ; Marasid, iii. 332.

CHAPTER XII

barathA, muhawwal, and the kAzimayn

Bar^thd and its Mosque : the Old Cemetery and the Gardens of
Ka yhbah. The Dyers’ Garden. The Muhawwal Township and the
Palace of Mu tasim. The Cemetery of the Martyrs and the Tomb of
Ibn Hanbal. The Cemetery of the Kuraysh and of the Straw Gate.
The Kizimayn Shrines and the Buyid Tombs. Tombs of Zubaydah
and the Caliph Amin. Tomb of *Abd Allah Ibn Hanbal.

On the banks of the *!sA Canal, immediately
above the point where the KarkhiyA branched off,
lay the township of BarAthA. This is described as
situated at but ‘ a short distance ’ — say half a mile —
from Muhawwal ; while, coming out from Baghdad,
it was immediately beyond the burial ground of the
KunAsah, otherwise called the Old Cemetery (Al-
Makbarah-al-Kadtmah), which stretched from the
rubbish heaps on the Muhawwal Road down to
as far as the *lsA Canal above the bifurcation.
On the further side of the KarkhAyA Canal and
running down its right bank from BarAthA as far
as the Bridge of the Greeks, Ya'lfAbi describes a
succession of gardens, which ended at the Palace (DAr)
of Ka'yAbah, a native of Basrah and sumamed ‘ the
Gardener,’ which lay opposite the bridge. This

154 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Ka')^bah was celebrated for his plantations of
date-palms, young trees being brought up the river
from Basrah to Baghdad, where after being thus
transplanted they became acclimatiz,ed, ultimately
producing most excellent fruit.

The township of Barithi was celebrated- for its
mosque, which to the Shl'ahs was a much vene-
rated shrine. The tradition was that the Caliph
'Alt had halted here in the year 37 (a. d. 657),
when on his march to fight the Harftri rebels at
Nahrawin, and it was said that 'Alt had prayed on
the spot where die mosque was subsequently built.
Baghdad of course was only founded a century
after this date, but Bardthi was already a flourish-
ing hamlet, and after his prayers 'Alt bathed in
the Idammdm or hot bath of the village. From
this period onwards Bar^thi obtained celebrity as
a holy place among the Sht'ahs, many ascetics coming
to live in the reed .cabins that were built on the
canal side, and in connexion with these people
Yikfit tells an edifying story of a man and woman
who each had lived at Barithi a long life of pious
renunciation. In course of time a mosque was
built, where the Sht'ahs used to assemble and
perform what the Sunnis looked upon as heretical
rites. Matters continued in this wise down to the
beginning of the fourth century .(the tenth a. d.),
but in the reign of the Caliph Muktadir the orthodox
party would no longer tolerate the scandal, the
Sht'ahs were finally accused of compassing.rebellion,
and one Friday, the mosque having been surrounded
by troops, those found there were, by order of the
Caliph, carried off to prison and severely punished.
The Sht'ah Mosque was then pulled down, and its

XII.] Barathd, Muhawwal, and Kdzimayn 155

site included in the grounds of the neighbouring
Cemetery of the Kun^sah.

The heterodox services of the Shl'ahs having been
thus suppressed, the needs of the Sunni population had
to be supplied, and hence about a quarter of a century
later, namely in the year 328 (a. d. 940), the Caliph
RSdi gave permission to the Governor of Baghdad,
who was the Amir Bajkam the Turk, to rebuild
the old mosque for orthodox worship. The original
plan was now greatly enlarged, many neighbouring
houses having been bought in, and the new walls
were strongly built of kiln-burnt bricks set in
mortar, the roof being constructed of teak beams
painted or carved, and the name of the Caliph
R4di was inscribed over the entrance. The next
Caliph Muttaki completed the work, giving orders
that the pulpit which HSrCln-ar-Rashid had originally
bestowed on the great mosque of the City of Mans6r —
and which being out of use had been temporarily,
stored in the mosque treasury — should be taken
thence, and set up in the new BarithS, Mosque.
Further, he appointed the Imim of the RusSfah
Mosque to serve in the new establishment, and the
Caliph himself in great .pomp led the Friday prayers
when said here for the first time — the people of both
East and West Baghdad crowding to attend — on
the second Friday of the month Jum4di I of the
year 329 (a.d. 941). The Barithi Mosque after
this date was counted as one of the great mosques
of Baghdad, and continued in use as such down to
the year 451 (a. d. 1059), when Khatib visited it
Subsequently it was again dismantled, and when’
Ydkfit wrote in 623 ((a. d. H2$), it had long fallen
into ruin, and though some traces of the walls

156 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

still remained, these were then fast disa:ppearing,
for the people constantly carried off bricks from
them to be used in other newer buildings.

Such is the account given by Khatlb and Yikht ;
it is to be remarked, however, that at first it appears
not to have been considered as one of the Baghdad
mosques. I§takhri, who wrote his description of
Baghdad in 340 (a. D. 951), more than ten years,
therefore, after the date when the Caliph Muttaki is
said to have completed the restoration of the Bar&th^
Mosque, omits all mention of it. He says that in
his day there were only three gp'eat mosques for the
Friday prayers in Baghdad, namely that of the City
of Man§tjr on the western side, with the Rus&fah
Mosque and that of the Palace for East Baghdad.
Ibn Hawkal, who wrote in 367 {a. d. 978), is the
first to mention the BarithS. Mosque, adding it as
a fourth to those already named by his predecessor
Istakhri, and he mentions that it had originally been
an oratory dedicated to the Caliph 'Ali, which
account confirms that given above from Khatib and

The Muhawwal Road, after leaving the Kun^sah
Cemetery and passing BardthS., came on to the town
of Muhawwal, and the only places mentioned here
as lying along the highroad are the Tanners’ Yards
(Ad-Dabbdghln), which on the further side stretched
down to the Tsd Canal. The name of Muhawwal,
as already mentioned, signified the Place of Unload-
ing, the cargoes of boats that came down the Nahr

^ The name of Barithi is derived from the Sjniac word Broits.^
meaning 'the outermost'; cf. Frankel, p. xx; Ya’kubi, 244, 251;
Khatib, folios loia, b, 102 a, b, 113a; Yakut, i. 532; Istakhri, 84;
Ibn Hawkal, 165.

xn.] Baratha, Muhawwal, and Kdzimayn 157

'isd being here disembarked for subsequent trans-
port into Baghdad. Ydkiit describes Muhawwal
in the seventh century (the thirteenth a. d.) as a
fine township, a league distant from Baghdad,
surrounded by many gardens where abundance of
fruit was grown, and it had also excellent markets.
According to Idamd-Allah, the Persian author of
the following century, Muhawwal was then two
leagues distant from the capital, and lay for the
most part on the western (or as we should count
it, the northern) bank of the 't si Canal. Its gardens
were continuous with those of West Baghdad, and
he adds that many of the Abbasid Caliphs had built
palaces here. Among the rest had been a cele-
brated pleasure-house {K 4 shk or Kiosk) built in
the early part of the third century (the ninth A. D.)
for the Caliph Mu‘ta?im in the highest part of the
town, so as to be above the reach of the mosquitoes
which swarmed among the low-lying gardens : these
insects, it is reported, having been ‘bound by an
incantation, whereby they could not come into that
building.’

To distinguish this town from other places of the
like name, it was called Al-Muhawwal-al-Kabir or
Great Muhawwal, and though all traces of it have
apparently now disappeared, Muhtawwal was still a
populous place after the year 700 (a. d. 1300), when
the author of the Mardsid wrote his epitome of
Yfikiit, and as late as the year 740 (1339), when
Idamd-Allah the Persian appears to have visited it \

To complete the survey of Western Baghdad,
some account remains to be given of the grave-

^ Ibn Serapion, 14; Ya^kubi, 344; Tabari, iii. 890; Yakut, iv* 252,
432 ; Marasid, iii. 53; Nuzhat, i6i.

158 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

yeirds which lay on the river bank above the
northern suburbs, in which the shrines of the
Kizimayn, still existing, mark the site of the older
Cemetery of the Kuraysh, so named after the cele-
brated Arab tribe from which the Prophet and the
Abbasids alike traced their descent.

It is a Moslem custom to bury the dead near the
city gates, and beyond the Tdhirid Trench the
cemetery which lay outside the Idarb Gate on the
road leading to the Kizimayn was celebrated for
possessing the toihb of the Imim Ibn hlanbal,
founder of the hlanbalites, the latest of the four
orthodox Sunni sects. This was the Cemetery of
the Martyrs (Mukltbir-ash-Shuhad^l), though why
this graveyard especially should have been so called
confesses ignorance. The Imim Ibn hlanbal
took his name from his grandfather (for to be exact,
he was Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ibn Hanbal), and
he died at Baghdad during the reign of the Caliph
Mutawakkil, in the year 241 (a, d. 855), being
buried in this cemetery at the Idarb Gate in
presence of an immense concourse of mourners,
his steadfastness under persecution, in the cause of
orthodoxy, having won him the unbounded venera-
tion of the people of Baghdad. In the next century,
Mukaddasi, writing in 375 (a. d, 985), mentions his
tomb as that of a most holy man, and Khattb in
451 (a. D. 1059) speaks of the shrine of Ibn Hanbal
at the I;larb Gate as a place of pious visitation.
Close by stood the tombs of two other saints,
namely of the ascetic Bishr-al-Hiflt, surnamed
‘ Barefoot,’ who was the friend of Ibn IJanbal and
died in 226 (a. d. 841), and of Manstir ibn 'Ammdr
the Traditionist, who died in 225 (a. d. 840). And

xn.] Bardthd, Muhawwal, and Kdztmayn 159

these were three out of the four saintly guardians of
Baghdad — Ma'rhf Karkhi, already mentioned as
having his tomb beyond the Basrah Gate, making
up the quartette — whose tombs sanctified the city.

The tomb of Ibn I^anbal as time elapsed became
a noted holy place, and among other pious visitors
the chronicles mention that both the Saljfik Sultan
Milik Shdh and his Wazlr the famous Nizdm-al-Mulk,
when they were in Baghdad in 479 (a.d. 1086.),
made their devotions here. During the three great
inundations of Baghdad, namely in the years 466
(a.d. 1074), 554 (a.d. 1159), and 614 (a.d. 1217), the
shrine of Ibn yanbal suffered much damage, which
was, however, repaired. Both Ydkiit in 623 (a.d.
1226), and his epitomist the author of the Ma^dsid
in 700 (a. d. 1300), mention the tomb of Ibn Hanbal
as still standing at the yarb Gate ; and Ibn
Khallikin, who is of the same century, repeats the
substance of the foregoing in his biography of the
Imdm. Ibn Batiitah, who visited Baghdad in 727
(a. D. 1327), especially describes this shrine as one
that was still highly venerated by the inhabitants
of the metropolis. He adds that the cupola over
the grave of the Imdm, tliough many times restored,
had been, as often again, demolished by a super-
natural power, lest (as the Berber traveller explains
it) against the will of Ibn Hanbal his tomb should
become the object of a devotion savouring of
idolatry ^

^ A similar miracle is related by Hamd- Allah of the tomb of the
saint named T^ds-al-Haramayn, who is buried near AbarkOh in
Northern Firs ; see Nuzhat (Bombay Lithograph), p. 174; Ibn Batutah,
ii. 113, and compare with this Goldziher, i. 257. Mas*udi, vii. 229;
Mukaddasi, 130; Yakut, i. 444; iv. 586, 587 ; Marasid, L 112 ; iii. 129 ;
Khatib, folios 112 a, b ; Ibn Khallikan, No. 19, p. 29 ; Ibn-al-Athir, x.

i6o Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

To the north of the Cemetery of the Martyrs at
the yarb Gate, and towards the river bank, stretched
the great Kuraysh Cemetery, the eastern part of
which was more especially known as the Cemetery
of the Straw Gate (Mukdbir Bdb-at-Tibn), this
having opened from the Zubaydiyah Fief near
here. The graveyard in this region had originally
been laid out by the Caliph Manshr, and one of the
first to be buried here was his own son Ja'far-al-
Akbar (the elder), who died in the year 1 50 ( a . d . 767).
This cemetery not long afterwards came to be
known as that of the Shrine of Kclzim, or of the
Two Kizims (Kizimayn), a name which it still

62, 103 ; xi. 164; xii. 216. Ibn Jubayr (p. 228), and Ibn Batutah, who
merely copies the account of his predecessor, both speak of the tomb
of Ibn Hanbal as lying ‘close to the quarter of the tomb of Abu
Hanifah,* and from the context it would appear at first sight as though
Ibn Jubayr put the shrine of Ibn Hanbal on the eastern or left bank
of the Tigris. Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Batutah, however, mention it
among other tombs that undoubtedly lay on the west bank, and the
confusion may have arisen either from a mistake in the MS, or from
Ibn Jubayr confounding the tomb of Ibn Hanbal at the Harb Gate
with that of *Abd- Allah, son of Ibn Hanbal, which, as will be men-
tioned below, was situated close to the west bank of the Tigris,
immediately opposite the shrine of Abu Hanifah in Rus^fah. Further,
Ibn Jubayr states that Ibn Hanbal lay buried in the immediate
neighbourhood of the tombs of the two Sfifi saints— Hallij, who was
put to death in 309 (a.d. 921), and Shibli his contemporary, who died
in 334 (a.d. 946)— while Hamd-AUah, writing in 740 (a.d. 1339),
speaks of both of these tombs in conjunction with that of Ibn Hanbal
as situated in Western Baghdad (Nuzhat, 149). Ibn Batutah, de-
scribing the holy places in Western Baghdad, adds that near the tomb
of Ibn ^Janbal stood the shrine of Bishr, surnamed ‘ Barefoot,* also
that of Sari-as-Sakati and Junayd. Hamd-Allah also mentions the
tomb of Ibn ^anbal in his history called the Guztdah, and there
speaks of it as lying ‘above’ (in Persian bdld) the shrine of Abu
Hantfah, which seems to point again to a confusion between the
graves of Ibn Hanbal and of his son ‘Abd- Allah on the Tigris bank.
See the fifth book of the Guzidah^ ‘ On the Imams,’ under heading
‘Life of Ibn ^anbal.’

XU.] Bardthd, Muhawwal, and Kdzimayn i6i

bears, in honoiir of the two Sht'ah Imims who
had been buried here; while near by were the
graves of Zubaydah, the widow of Hdrftn-ar-Rashld,
and of her son the Caliph Amin, also the tombs of
the two Buyid princes, Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah, who died
in 356 (a.d. 967), and Jaldl-ad-Dawlah, who died in
435 (a. D. 1044).

In regard to the two Shl'ah ImAms who gave
their names to the Kizimayn shrines, these were:
MAsi, surnamed Al-Kdzim, ‘He who restraineth
his anger,’ grandson of the grandson of Husayn,
son of the Caliph 'Ali ; and Muhammad, surnamed
Al-Jaw4d or At-Taki, ‘ the Generous ’ or ‘ the Pious,'
grandson of Mhsi-al-Kdzim aforesaid. The two
were respectively the seventh and the ninth Shl'ah
Imdms, Milsi having been put to death by HirOin-
ar-Rashld in 186 (a. d. 802), while Mu^ammad-at-
Taki died, poispned, it is said, in 219 (a.d. 834),
during the Caliphate of Mu'tasim. These shrines
of the Kizimayn are also sometimes spoken of as
standing in the Sh<inizi37ah, which is here therefore
taken to be synonymous with the Ruraysh burial
ground, the explanation gjiven by Khatib being that
there were two brothers of the name, and that while
the Ruraysh Cemetery was called after ShAnizl
the Less, his elder brother had given his name
to the graveyard down the Khfah highroad, already
described in chapter vi. In later times, however,
the great northern graveyard of West Baghdad
was exclusively known as Ae Cemetery of the Bdb-
at-Tibn, but, from the position of the Straw Gate,
this would appear to have been a name more
properly applied to the eastern part only

* The anonymous epitomist of Ibn Hawkal, who wrote in 630

BAGHDAD

i 62 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Who first built the Kizimayn shrines is unknown,
but YA^fit describes these in 623 (a. d. 1226) as
forming a separate walled suburb, inhabited by a
considerable population, the houses at that date
lying at a distance from the Tigris bank which
might be estimated at a good horse gallop, or about
a thousand yards. The Persian writer Idamd-Allah,
a century later than Y 4 kAt, also speaks of the
Kdzimayn as forming a township by itself, measur-
ing six thousand paces in circumference, the centre
point of which was occupied by the tombs of the
Imdms. In the earlier centuries, during the con-
stantly recurring riots between the Sunni and the
Shi'ah factions of Baghdad, the suburb of the
K4zima5m naturally became the rallying-place of
the heterodox party, and when these last were
discomfited the orthodox mob would plunder the
shrines. On the other hand, princes of Shi'ah
tendencies like the Buyids, frequently enriched the
sanctuary with gifts, and the Caliph Tii', who
reigned from 363 to 381 {a. d. 974 to 991), is stated
to have acted as Imdm of the Friday prayers on
more than one occasion in the great mosque of
the Kizimayn.

In 443 (a. D. 1051), as will be described in the
following paragraph, the shrines were plundered
and burnt, but the buildings must have been shortly
afterwards restored, for in 479 (a. d. 1086) they
were visited by Mdlik Shih the SaljAk, and in 580
(a. D. 1184) again are honourably mentioned by the
traveller Ibn Jubayr in his description of Baghdad.

(a.D. 1233), apparently transfers the name of the Kuraysh Cemetery
to the quarter round the tomb of Abu ^jlantfeh in Eastern Baghdad ;
see Ibn Hawkal, 164, note e.

xn.] Barathd, Muhawwal, and Kdzimayn 163

In 622 (a. D. 1225), during the short reign of the
Caliph Zdhir, the dome over the shrine of the two
ImSms was destroyed by fire, and the Caliph began
to rebuild it, but dying in the following year it was
his son and successor Mustansir who completed the
work. During the great Mongol siege in 656
(a. D. 1258) the shrines are stated to have been
plundered and burnt by order of HfilS.gfi, but sub-
sequently rebuilt ; and in the year 700 (a. d. i 300),
when the author of the Mar&sid wrote, the mosque
was still standing near the Tigris bank, though from
having been twice flooded in the recent inuqda-
tions it had come for the most part to be a ruin ^

Of the many plunderings which the Kizimayn
suffered, perhaps the worst was that consequent
on the riots of the year 443 (a. d. 1051), and it
is on this occasion that the chronicle first mentions
the tombs of Zubaydah and of her soa the Caliph
Am!n, which are described as standing in immediate
proximity to the Shi'ah shrines. It will be re-
membered that after the tragic death of Amin, his
head was cut off and sent to Mamfin in Khurisdn,
while his body was hurriedly buried in a garden near
the Iron Gate (Bib-al-yadld) on the T^i-hirid Trench,
Zubaydah, with her grandsons, the sons of Amin,
was at first deported to HumAnlyah down the
Tigris, but subsequently appears to have been
allowed to return to Baghdad, where she died in
216 (a. d. 831), some seventeen years after the great
siege, and two years before the death of the Caliph
Mamfin. Tabari (copied by all succeeding chroni-

‘ Khatib, folios mb, 113a; Mas'udi, vi. 330; vii. 215; Ibn-al-.
Athir, vjii. 425; Fakhri, 379; Yakut, iv. 587; Marasid, ii. 432;
Rashid-ad-Din, 302, 308; Nuzhat, 149.

M 2

164 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

cles), who gives the date of her death, says nothing
in regard to where she was buried, but it will be
remembered that the Zubaydtyah Fief, which was
occupied by her people, lay close to the Straw
Gate, which opened towards the Kizimayn, and
hence there is every likelihood of her having been
buried in this cemetery.

In the year 443 (a. d. 1051) a dispute broke out
between the Sunnis and Shi'ahs of West Baghdad
in the matter of a gate in Karkh, the Shi'ahs having
wished to set above this an inscription in praise
of the Caliph 'All, which inscription the Sunnis
held to savour of rank idolatry. The leader of
the Sunnis was killed in the riot which attended
the discussion of this thorny matter, and when his
friends assembled to bury him in the Cemetery of
the Martyrs near the tomb of Ibn Idanbal, the riot
of the previous day was purposely renewed, the
orthodox party wishing to avenge his death. In
pursuance of this intention they proceeded to break
open the neighbouring shrines of the Kizimayn and
plunder the tombs of the Shi'ah saints. After
carrying off the gold and silver lamps and the
curtains which adorned these sanctuaries, the
rioters on the following day completed their work
by setting fire to the buildings. The great teak-
wood domes above the shrines of the ImAms
MfisA and Muhammad were entirely burnt, and
the fire spreading to the neighbouring tombs of
the two Buyid princes, Mu'izz and JalAl-ad-Dawlah,
first consumed these structures, together with the
tomb of Ja'far, son of the Caliph Mansfir, and
next attacked the tomb of the Caliph Amin and
of his mother the Princess Zubaydah, the mob

xii.] Bardtkd, Muhawwal, and Kdzimayn 165

meanwhile perpetrating many horrible and impious
acts. Ibn-al-Athir, who gives us these details, is
apparently the first authority to record the place
of burial of Zubaydah, but since there would appear
to be no reason for doubting the accuracy of his
information, and that therefore the tomb of Zubay-
dah near the K^lzimayn existed here in the middle
of the fifth century (the eleventh a. d.), this entirely
invalidates the attribution of the present, so-called,
tomb of Zubaydah, a comparatively modern structure
standing near the tomb of Ma'rfif Karkhi, some three
miles to the south of the Kizimayn, which will be
more particularly noticed in the concluding chapter
of the present work.

In the Kuraysh Cemetery, or rather in its eastern
half near the Straw Gate, another celebrated grave
remains to be mentioned, namely that of ‘Abd- Allah,
the son of the Imdm Ibn Uanbal. He died in 290
(a. d. 903), and was a famous traditionist, emulating
also the reputation of his father for sanctity. By the
terms of his will he had enjoined that his body
should not be buried in the shrine of Ibn Hanbal,
but outside in the cemetery beyond the Straw Gate.
Here, according to a well authenticated tradition,
a prophet {^bt') of some former dispensation had
been given sepulture, and ‘Abd- Allah Ibn Hanbal
was of opinion that to rest in the neighbourhood
of a prophet’s bones was even better than to be
buried in the grave of his father the Imim. The
tomb, therefore, was made at a place between the
Kizimayn and the Zubaydlyah Fief, where it
continued for many centuries to be a place of
visitation, and in the seventh century (the thirteenth
A. D.), when Y 4 kht wrote, was still standing, though

i66

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

much in min, the surrounding plain being already
used for arable land, on which corn crops were
grown.

In later times a confusion arose between the
tomb of Ahmad ibn yanbal and that of his son
'Abd-Allah ; and when the former shrine fell to
r uin with the disappearance of the quarter round
the Harb Gate, the latter tomb must have taken
its place in the popular veneration. This is first
indicated by Mirkhwind, who, when describing the
occupation of Baghdad by Timur in 695 (a. d.
1296), states that ‘the shrine of the Imim Ahmad,’
having recently become mined by the rebellious
floods of the Tigris, Timur gave orders that it
should be rebuilt; but the tomb in question, from
its position on the river bank, can only have been
that of ‘Abd-Allah, son of Aljmad Ibn yanbal.
The confusion would eajsily have come about from
the names, for as has already been mentioned, Ibn
Idanbal the ImS,m was not in reality the son of
Idanbal (as the form of name would imply), but his
grandson, and Ibn Idanbal thus coming tp be used
as a sort of patronymic, the traditionist 'Abd-Allah,
his son, naturally also came to be sometimes called
Ibn Idanbal. When, therefore, the tomb of Ibn
yanbal the Imim at the yarb Gate had disappeared,
the tomb of his son 'Abd-Allah took its place, and
came to be called the tomb of Ibn IJanbal. As
such it existed, after having been restored by Timur,
down to about the year a. d. 1750, when Niebuhr in
describing Baghdad mentions, this shrihe on the
Tigris bank (opposite the tomb of Abu hlanlfah in
East Baghdad) ; ?ind he also incorrectly speaks of it
as the tomb of Ahmad Ibn Jdanbal. It however.

xn.] Bardtha, Muhawwal, and Kdzimayn 167

then was a complete ruin, the building for the
most part having been recently carried away by
the river floods ; hence at the present day nothing
remains of either the tomb of 'Abd-Allah, or of
that of his father the more celebrated Ahmad Ibn
Idanbal, which in former times had been among
the most illustrious shrines of Western Baghdad ^

* Mas'udi, vi. 482; Tabari, iii. 934, 1105; Ibn-al-Athir, ix. 395;
Yakut, i. 443 ; Khatib, folio 112 a; Mirkhwand, part vi. 66 ; Niebuhr,
ii. 248.

CHAPTER XIII

EASTERN BAGHDAD IN GENERAL

East and West Baghdad and Simarri. The three northern quarters
of East Baghdad; Rusdfah, Shammisiyah, and Mukharrim. The
Eastern Palaces and modem Baghdad. The second Siege : Musta*in
and the walls on the western and eastern sides. Ya*kCibi and Ihn
Serapion : the highroads of the three northern Quarters. The Canals
of the eastern side ; from the river KhMis and from the Nahr Bin.
The three Bridges of Boats. The Main Bridge. The Upper Bridge
and Lower Bridge. The Zandaward Bridge. Executions on the
Bridges. Upper Bridge dismantled. Later Bridge of the Palaces.
Numbers of skilfs. Bridge of Kasr SUbdr. The modem Bridge.

T HE rule of the Abbasids in Baghdad lasted for
rather more than five centuries — from 146 (a.d. 763),
when Mansfir founded the city, to 656 (a.d. 1258),
when, after the Mongol invasion, the last Caliph
Musta'sim was put to death by Hfiligfi — and these
five centuries are divided into two periods of unequal
length by an interval of fifty-eight years, during
which the Caliphs, abandoning Baghdad, lived at
Simarri, making this for a time the capital of the
empire.

From the foundation of the city to the removal
of the seat of government to Simarri seventy-five
years had elapsed, and during this first period the
Caliphs held their court in West Baghdad, on the

Eastern Baghdad in General 169

Arabian side of the Tigris. After the return from
Simarri, and during the second period, which lasted
for close on four centuries, East Baghdad on the
Persian side of the river became the seat of govern-
ment ; and here the Caliphs built new palaces, a
new city with suburbs in the course of time grow-
ing up round these. The chief quarter of modern
Baghdad also lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris,
being the outcome of these suburbs which grew up
after the fourth century (the tenth a.d.) round the
later palaces of the Caliphs. Every trace of these
palaces has now almost completely disappeared, but
the city wall built in the fifth century (the eleventh
A. D.) to enclose the new suburbs still exists, and
this, as will be shown later, is virtually identical with
the present wall of Eastern Baghdad.

For a hundred years and more, however, after
the tiihe of Mansfir, these palaces and suburbs not
having yet come into existence. East Baghdad
consisted of the three northern quarters which lay
on the river bank, for the most part outside the
limit of the later wall, and above the subsequent
site of the palaces, in the region where the village
of Mu'azzam now stands. These three northern
quarters were called RusSfah, ShammcLsi5?ah, and
Mukharrim ^ ; they covered a fap-shaped area of
ground, which, radiating from the end of the Main
Bridge, was bounded by a semicircle sweeping
round from the Tigris above the Upper Bridge
to the river bank again below the Lower Bridge,
Starting from the end of the Main Bridge, two
highroads diverged, one going north, the other
east, which divided the semicircular area just de-

> See Map, No. V.

170 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

scribed into three parts ; the northern road, towards
Mosul, leaving the city limits at the Shammdstyah
Gate, while the eastern or Khuris&n road had its
exit at the Khuris^n Gate S going towards Persia.

The Mahdt Palace in Rusifah was the nucleus
from which East Baghdad developed, and as already
described in chapter iii, it was founded by Manshr,
almost contemporaneously with the Round City, to
be the residence of his son and successor Mahdi.
It stood near the river bank in the Rusifah Quarter,
which last occupied a triangular space of ground
bounded on two sides by a great loop of the Tigris,
above the Main Bridge, and thus the palace lay to
the north-west of the bridge. Rus^fah on the land
side was bounded by the great northern highroad,
this dividing it from the Shammisiyah Quarter,
which occupied the triangle between the two great
highroads already spoken of as going north and east
from the head of the Main Bridge. The limit of
the ShammcLstyah Quarter on die third side to the
north-east was the city wall going up from the
Khurisdn Gate to the Shammasiyah Gate on the
river bank, the Baradin Gate opening halfway
between the two. The Mukharrim Quarter lay
to the south of the Shammasiyah, being divided
from this last by the eastern or Khur&sin road.
The Mukharrim Quarter was bounded on the west
side by the Tigpris from the Main Bridge down to the
Lower Bridge; while on the third side the limit
was the quadrant of the city wall going from the

^ This Kliurisi,n Gate of East Baghdad must not be confounded
with the gate of the same name in the Round City, which opened on
the Main Bridge of Boats. The Khurdsin road, within the city, ran
between the two.

xm.] Eastern Baghdad in General 171

Khurisin Gate to the Gate of the Tuesday Market
on the river at the Lower Bridge, the Abraz Gate
to the south-east lying about halfway between
the two.

On the Tigris bank, immediately below the Gate
of the Tuesday Market, lay the gjrounds of the
uppermost of the three later palaces of the Caliphs,
namely the Firdhs, and below this came the gardens
of the I^asani and the Tij Palaces. These three
palaces, as already mentioned, came in after times
to be surrounded by suburbs and then by the new
town wall, which at the present day forms the boun-
dary of the city of East Baghdad ; but as fixing the
southern limit of the three older or northern quarters
(these having now almost entirely disappeared), it is
to be noted that both the Abraz Gate and the Gate
of the Tuesday Market in the Mukharrim Quarter
stood within the area afterwards enclosed by the
wall round the later palace suburbs, so that the
lower part of the old Mukharrim Quarter over-
lapped the upper part of the region occupied by
modem Baghdad^.

A hundred years after the time of Mansiir, and
about the middle of the period of half a century
when Simariel was the capital, the interval of a year
occurred during which Baghdad was once again the
abode of the Caliph, or rather of one of the Caliphs,
for there were two rival Commanders of the Faithful
throughout the year 251 (a.d. 865), one in S^lmarrd,
the other in Baghdad. The latter was Musta'in,
who, in consequence of a revolt of the Turk body-
guard, fled for his life from the palace at SimarrS.,
where Mu'tazz, his cousin, was immediately made
* See inset plan to Map No. I.

172 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

Caliph ’1 his stead. Musta'in, with his adherents,
travelled down the Tigris, seeking refuge in Baghdad;
and here, on the appearance of the pursuing army
from SdmarrA, Musta'in proceeded to entrench him-
self in Rusifah, which became his headquarters and
the centre of the defence.

The siege which followed lasted a year, and was
the second of those celebrated in the history of
Baghdad, the topography of the city being somewhat
changed by the circular wall which Musta'in then
built to defend the eastern and western quarters.
In West Baghdad the position of the upper and
the lower limits of the wall are known, but the course
followed by the remainder of the semicircle unfor-
tunately is not specified. The upper end began on
the Tigris bank at the Gate of the Zubaydah Fief,
above the Harbour of the X^irid Trench ; and the
wall met the river again below at the palace of
Humayd, at some distance above the Lower Harbpur
of the '1 si Canal. Between these two points the semi-
circle probably followed first the line of the X^irid
Trench as far west as the Anbir Gate, thence
crossing to include within its sweep the quarter
of the Muhawwal Gate, and finally coming down
the left bank of the ‘tsi Canal, -but not including
the Lower Harbour: this at least is what may be
gathered from the accounts of the siege. The
wall round East Baghdad completed the circle,
beginning on the Tigris bank opposite to the palace
of Humayd, immediately below the Lower Bridge
of Boats, Passing by the Gate of the X'^^sday
Market, it came to the Abraz Gate on the south-
east, thence curved north and west, the wall here
being pierced by the KhurS.sin and Baraddn Gates,

XIII.] Eastern Baghdad in General 173

till the upper end of the semicircle was reached
on the Tigris bank at the Shammdsiyah Gate
opposite to the Upper Harbour, where the semicircle
on the west side had started The wall, therefore,
included within its circuit the three Bridges of Boats
crossing the Tigris.

The description which Ya'khbi has left us of
Eastern Baghdad is unfortunately not so full as
that which he has written of the western city, and
we have to rely on Ibn Serapion for most of the
details of the Mukharrim, Shammisiyah, and Ru§4fah
Quarters. Ya‘k;hbl, however, though he does not
mark the relative positions of the various fiefs in
East Baghdad which he enumerates, does give a
brief list of the highroads which traversed the
three northern quarters within the line of Musta'ln's
wall, which last had been built a quarter of a cen-
tury only before the time when Ya*kfibt wrote.
These roads were five in number, not counting the
great Khurdsdn road going from the Main Bridge
eastward to the Khurdsin Gate; and they enable
us fairly well to understand the course of the canals
described 'by Ibn Serapion. Of the five roads, two
traversed Rusdfah, namely the ‘straight’ road to
the palace and mosque of Mahdl, and the road
of the Khudayr Market, which must have led to
the Upper Bridge of Boats. Next came the great
northern highroad leading to the Shammdsiyah
Gate, and then the road to the Baradfin Gate.
The road from the Lower Bridge of Boats up the
Tigris bank into the Mukharrim Quarter is the
last road mentioned by Ya'kfibi, this of course
being on the south side of the great KhurSsin
^ Ibn Maskuwayh, 580; Tabari, iii. 1551*

174 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

highway, which it probably ran into not far from
the Main Bridge, opposite to where the northern
road diverged^.

Bfefore proceeding to describe the various quar-
ters of East Baghdad, it will be convenient to
summarize the account given by Ibn Serapion of
the canals which traversed this half of the great
city, and crossed the highroads which Ya'kdbi has
mentioned. These canals were all derived indi-
rectly from the Nahrawin, the main canal of the
east bank, which starting under the name of the
Kelthl of the Chosroes, branched from the Tigris
at Dur, about one hundred miles above Baghdad.
Following a much straighter course than that taken
by the river, the Nahrawin attained a length of
over 200 miles, and finally rejoined the Tigris at
Mddhariyd, about one hundred miles below Bagh-
dad. About halfway down the Nahrawdn, and
somewhat to the northward of due' east from
Baghdad, the great canal traversed Nahrawin Town,
and this was the point where the Khurisin high-
road from Baghdad crossed it, going east into
Persia. From the Nahrawin Canal, two transverse
canals or rivers, named respectively the Khilis and
the Nahr Bln (or Nahrabin), flowed westwards to
the Tigris, the first joining the river above Bagh-
dad, the second below it; and all the canals of
Eastern Baghdad were offshoots which ramified
between the Khili? and the Nahr Bin.

The Khilis left the Nahrawin probably at a
point near the town of Bijisri, and flowed into the
Tigris at Rishidiyah, a little above Baradin, the
town about three leagues due north of Baghdad
' Ya*kubi, 253.

xni.] Eastern Baghdad in General

175

which gave its name to the city gate. The Nahr
Bln, on the other hand, left the Nahrawin Canal
a short distance above the town of Nahrawin, and
flowed out into the Tigris about two leagues below
Baghdad at the village of Kalw^dh^. Hence it was
from the Khili§ that the northern quarters of East
Baghdad were watered, while the suburbs to the
south were traversed by the Nahr Bln offshoots.

From the Khdlis a canal branched, running south,
called the Nahr-al-Fadl, which flowed into the Tigris
near the Shammislyah Gate, in the upper part of
East Baghdad. Immediately before reaching this
gate, however, two canals, which subsequently
uniting formed a loop, branched together from the
Fadl Canal, these supplying Ru§ifah and the Sham-
mdslyah Quarters. One, called the Canal of the
Wall, went round outside the quadrant of the city
wall from the Shammisiyah Gate past the Baradin
Gate to the Gate of Kharisin ; here it was joined
by the second, called the Mahdl Canal, which
having entered the city at the ShammAslyah Gate,
first threw off a channel that went into Rusifah,
and next curving eastwards to the Khurisin Gate,
passed out through this, flowing into the Canal of
the Wall. Outside the town their united waters
were further augmented by the inflowing of the
Ja'farl Canal (or Nahr-al-Ja'farl)rah), an offshoot
from the parent stream of the Nahr Fadl, from
which it had branched at some distance to the north
of the Shammdslyah Gate ; and the stream of the
Ja'farl Canal, through either the Canal of the Wall
or the Mahdl Canal, flowed back into the Nahr Fadl,
from which it had originally derived its waters

^ Ibn Serapion (p- 23) is surely mistaken in representing the Mahd!

176 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Coming now to the Mukharrim Quarter and the
palaces in the southern part of East Baghdad, these
were watered by the Mhsi Canal and. its offshoots,
the Nahr MhsS. being a derivative of the Nahr Bin.
Not far from the right bank of the Nahr Bln, and
lying at some distance outside the walls of East
Baghdad, there was a gjreat palace of the Caliph
Mu'tadid, called Ath-Thurdy& (the Pleiades), which
will be more fully noticed in a later chapter. The
Mhsi Canal bifurcated to the west from the Nahr
Bin above the Palace of the Pleiades, through
which it flowed, and after irrigating the palace
gardens passed out to the place known as the
‘ Divide,’ where its waters parted to form three
canals.

The canal to the right, or the western branch,
which retained the name of the Nahr Mflsd, had the
longest course of the three ; its many branch canals
ramified through the Mukharrim Quarter, which its
main stream also traversed, and curving round this
district, crossed the road going down from the Main
Bridge to the Gate of the Tuesday Market, and
finally flowed out into the Tigris at the Garden
of Zihir, some distance to the south of the bridge-
head. The second or midmost canal from the
Divide was called the Nahr Mu‘alli; it entered
the city at the Abraz Gate, and passing out again
near die Gate of the Tuesday Market, flowed into
the Tigris at the uppermost of the palaces of the

Canal as flowing out of the Fadl Canal at the Shamm^styah Gate. If
water flowed down the Ja'fari, the Mahdi Canal must have flowed
into the Nahr Fadl, as did also the Canal of the Wall, for the two
combined could only serve to discharge the waters of the Ja'fari Canal
back into the Nahr Fadl, with which it thus formed a loop.

xni.] Eastern Baghdad in General

177

Caliphs, known as the Firdhs. I bn Serapion gives
no special name to the third or lowest canal from
the Divide, but for convenience it may be called
the Canal of the Palaces. Turning off to the south,
it watered the grounds of the two palaces of the
Caliphs — called respectively the I^asani and the
Tij — flowing out finally into the Tigris, immediately
below the Tij Palace.

Thus, to recapitulate, Eastern Baghdad, in its
northern quarters, was watered by the ramifications
of the Mahdi, Ja'fari, and Wall Canals, these forming
a great loop taken from the Nahr Fadl, a derivative
of the Khdlis; while the southern quarters were
traversed by the three canals from the Divide of
the Mhsi Canal, which was itself a derivative of the
Nahr Bin : both the Khilis and the Nahr Bin being
offshoots from the great Nahrawin Canal *.

Before proceeding to describe the eastern quar-
ters in detail, it will be convenient to state in the
present chapter what is known of the various bridges
of boats which crossed the Tigris, forming the lines
of communication between the eastern and the
western halves of the great city.

The Tigris at Baghdad, where the river is on
an average more than 250 yards wide, has never
been spanned (at least in Moslem times) by any
structure more permanent than a bridge of boats.
Such a bridge is in Arabic generally known under
the name of Jisr, in distinction to a masonry bridge
of arches called a Kantarah, such as was built to
cross a canal. Bridges of boats are, of course, easily
broken up and shifted up or downstream to meet
the needs of traffic, but in the earlier times, and

' Ibn Serapion, 19 to 23.

N

BAGHDAD

178 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

as late as the middle of the fifth century the (eleventh
A. D.), there appear to have been three such bridges
(Upper, Main, and Lower) permanently set for crossing
the Tigris, and the positions of these do not appear
to have materially varied, all three having been
included within the line of walls (described p. 172)
built by Musta'in. From the earliest times the
middle or Main Bridge was traversed by the great
eastern highroad that led from the Khurdsin Gate
of the Round City of Mansiir to the KhuicLsin
Gate in the city wall of the three northern quarters.
The Main Bridge had at its western end the Khuld
Palace and the great review ground, while the arched
gate called the Bdb-at-Tik was at the eastern end
of the bridge, this opening directly into the great
market street of East Baghdad, from which the
chief thoroughfares branched.

The second or Upper Bridge crossed immediately
below the Upper Harbour to the Shammelsiyah
Quarter, being reached from the western side
by the highroad which left the Round City at
the Syrian Gate, traversing the Uarbiyah Quarter.
At the eastern end of the Upper Bridge was the
Bridge Gate (Bib-al-Jisr), which is often mentioned
during the two earlier sieges of Baghdad, namely
under Amin in the year 198 (a. D. 814), and in the
time of Musta'in in 251 (a. d. 865), on which latter
occasion it is reported that this Upper Bridge, then
consisting of twenty boats, was set on fire by the
enemy and entirely destroyed. After the middle
of the fourth century (the tenth a. d.) the great
Palace of the Buyids was built in the Shammisiyah,
occupying the region on the eastern bank, to which
the Upper Bridge more immediately gave access.

xni.] Eastern Baghdad in General 179

The third or Lower Bridge — ^which Ya'khbl calls
the first bridge (Al-Jisr-al-Awwal) and Mas'hdi
(apparently) ‘the new bridge’ — according to Khaffb
had originally been laid down by MansAr at the
time when he built the Khuld Palace in 157
(a.d. 774). It is described as starting from near
the Barley Gate on the west side, which must have
stood near the lower end of the Khuld Gardens
on the road coming from the yarrini Archway, from
which point the bridge crossed to the Mukharrim
Quarter, within the Gate of the Tuesday Market,
from whence, as Ya'khbl describes it, the road
coming over from Western Baghdad went up the
Tigris bank before reaching the Pitched Gate.
Thus the western end of the Lower Bridge must
have been moored at a point immediately below
the mouth of the $arit Canal, in the quarter after-
wards known as the Tustartyln, but its exact position
depends on that of the Barley Gate, the site of which
is somewhat uncertain.

Besides these three permanent bridges of the early
period, there was a fourth bridge of boats temporarily
established by the Caliph Amin, which is described
as ‘double,’ and which crossed the river considerably
below the Lower Bridge. This was called the
Zandaward Bridge, and probably led to the palace
which Amin had built for himself near the Zanda-
ward Monastery, at the place which in after times
came to be occupied by the Kalwidhi Gate of later
Eastern Baghdad

^ The name in the MSS. of Khatib is spelt Zandartid^ but this
appears to be a clerical mistake for Zandaward^ which will be
described in* a later chapter. Ya'kubi, 248, 254; Mas’udi, ix. 4;
Khatib, folios 107 a, b ; Tabari, iii. 906 ; Ibn-al-Athir, vi. 193 ; vii.
97, 115*

N 2

i8o Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

In the days of H^rfin-ar-Rashld and his more
immediate successors, when plots and rebellions
were rife in the empire, the bridges of boats were
used as convenient places for public executions ;
here great offenders were crucified, and the heads
of rebels were exposed on the poles as a warning to
passers-by. Incidentally, we thus have frequent
mention in the chronicles of these bridges. In the
reign of Hirhn, for instance, when Ja'far the Barme-
cide had fallen from power and been put to death by
the Caliph, his body, after being divided into three
parts, was gibbeted on stakes set up in the middle
of each of the three bridges. Again, during the reign
of Mu'tadid in the year 280 (a. d. 193), the dead body
of Shamilah was crucified ‘ between the two bridges of
Western Baghdad’; and accordingtoMas'hdi the heads
of other rebels were also exposed in this same year
‘ on the bridge.’ In 283 (a. d. 896) it is reported that
the scaffolding, bearing the roadway above the boats
forming the Upper Bridge, suddenly gave way under
the press of people, and more than a thousand deaths
followed from those who, falling into the water, were
drowned. Lastly, not to mention other instances, in
the year 289 (a. d. 902) Wa§if the Eunuch, who had
revolted some eight years before, was finally captured,
and after being brought a prisoner to Baghdad had
suddenly died in prison; by order of the Caliph
Mu'tadid his body was partially embalmed in resin,
and then surmounted by the decapitated head was
exposed on the bridge, where it remained gibbeted
for over ten years, until at length, during a tumult,
it was taken down and tossed into the Tigris ^

These three Bridges (Upper, Main, and Lower)

^ Ya'kubi, History, ii. 510; Mas'udi, viii. 142, 143, 170.

xni.] Eastern Baghdad in General i8r

appear to have existed, with only temporary inter-
ruptions, down to the middle of the fourth century
(the tenth a. d.), when the period of the Buyid
supremacy beg^n. Shortly after this, however, the
Upper Bridge was dismantled, for both Istakhri in
340 (a. D. 951), and Ibn Hawkal in 367 (a. D. 978),
report that only two bridges of boats existed in
their day, and Khatib mentions that the Upper
Bridge, near the Maydin of Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah
the Biiyid, had before his time been brought
down the river to be moored between the review
ground and the BAb-at-T4k. in other words it was
set to form part of the Main Bridge. With the ruin
of the Rusifah Quarter, the Upper Bridge, which
crossed from the Idarbiyah to the Shammislyah,
would naturally have fallen out of use, coming to be
dismantled ; and thus in 450 (a. d. 1058), when Khatib
wrote his history of Baghdad, there were, as he says,
only two bridges of boats, namely the Main Bridge
at the B4b-at-Tik of the Khurisin highroad, and
the Lower Bridge, which he describes as beginning at
the.Mashra‘at-al-Kattdnin (the Wharf of the Cotton-
merchants).

The position of the Lower Bridge appears to
have been slightly shifted several times during the
earlier half of this century. Khatib says that in 448
(a.d. 1056) it had been moored between the Mash-
ra'at-al-Uattibln (the Woodcutters’ Wharf) of East
Baghdad and the Mashra'at-ar-Rawiyd (the Wharf
of the Water-jars) of the western city ; but that in
the year 450 it had been removed to the position
which he describes, opposite the Wharf of the
Cotton-merchants. Khatib further informs us that
the Lower Bridge, as early as the year 383 (a.d. 993),

i82 Baghdad during the' Caliphate (ch,

had already been temporarily moored at the Cotton-
merchants’ Wharf, but that soon after this date it
had been dismantled, and then, until the year 448,
there had been only the Main Bridge in use. Of
these various wharfs, however, nothing further
appears to have been recorded, and it is hence
impossible to fix the various positions that the
Lower Bridge occupied. Thus throughout the earlier
half of the fifth century (the eleventh a. d.) only
the Main Bridge was in use, as Khatib reports, and
this is confirmed by what is said in the chronicle
of. a riot which took place during the reign of the
Caliph ^^^Lim in 422 (a. d. 1031), when the (single)
bridge giving communication between the eastern
and western halves of the city had to be cut, in order
to separate the contending factions of Shi'ahs and
Sunnis who inhabited, respectively, Karkh and the
quarters of Hast Baghdad*.

Khatib wrote in the middle of the fifth century
(the eleventh a.d.), and in the second half of this
century great changes took place in East Baghdad,
which will be fully described in subsequent chapters.
These changes resulted in the building of the city
of Baghdad as we now see it, for the three older
northern quarters of Ru^fah, Shammisiyah, and
Mukharrim, with their city wall, having fallen to
ruin, new suburbs sprang up round the palaces of
the Caliphs during the reign of Muljitadi, and in 488
(a. D. 1095) successor Mustazhir surrounded these

^ Jstakhri, 84 ; Ibn Hawkal, 165. In Khatib compare the British
Museum MS., No. 1507, folios 107 a, b, with the Paris MS., No. 2128,
folios 36 a, b, which in many cases gives better readings. Ibn-al-Athir,
ix. 285 his, Khatib derived his information about the bridges from
Abu ‘Alt ibn Shddhin, who died in 420 (a.d. 1029), and from HilM
ibh al-Muhsin, who died in 448 (a.d. 1056).

xin.] Eastern Baghdad in General 183

new suburbs by a wall, virtually identical with the
one which now encloses modern Baghdad. The
bridges of boats which had given access to the three
northern quarters were naturally out of position for
the new town, and probably before the close of the
fifth century (the eleventh a. d.) a single bridge of
boats at the palaces of the Caliphs was established.
This Palace Bridge is mentioned by the writers of the
sixth century (the twelfth a. d.) and by Yil^fit at the
begjinning of the following century in such terms as to
lead to the conclusion that it was identical in position
with the single Bridge of Boats now in existence.

The first mention of the Palace Bridge appears to
be that found in the account written by the epitomist
of I bn Hawkal, more than a century after the date of
Kha^ib, namely about the year 568 (a. d. 1173), who'
states that there was in his day but one bridge, con-
sisting of boats held together by iron chains, which
served as the communication between the eastern
and the western parts of the city. Nearly a score of
years later, when Ibn Jubayr visited the city in 580
(a. D. 1184), this bridge had been recently carried
away by the floods, and the people, instead of
resetting the moorings of the pontoon boats, had
taken to the custom of crossing the Tigris in skiffs.
Ibn Jubayr writes that both night and , day the
passage was thus made by men and women alike,
who took great amusement therein. Referring to
the earlier years of ^he sixth century (the twelfth
A.D.), he adds that before his date there had been
two bridges in use, namely the one at the palace of
the Caliphs, which had been so recently carried away,
and a second above this (doubtless the older Main
Bridge opposite the ‘Adudt Hospital), but that even

184 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

with both these passages for crossing the river on
foot, the number of those wishing to pass over had
always been so great that the boatmen were con-
stantly employed ferrying the people over in their
skiffs. In this matter Khatlb, in the previous
century, has already remarked on the very profitable
business done by boatmen of Baghdad, and he gives
his authority for the statement that in the time
when Muwaffak (brother of the Caliph Mu'tamid)
was governor of Baghdad — he died in 278 (a.d. 891)
— there were 30,000 of the boats called sumayrtyah
then in use, the toll at the rate of three pieces
of silver for each • skiff producing 90,000 dirhams
daily, a sum amounting to between ;^3,ooo and
;^4,ooo.

From what Ibn Jubayr writes, and from several
incidental notices in the works of Yfikfit, it appears
that the western end of this Bridge of Boats crossing
to the palaces of the Caliphs must have been moored
on the Tigris bank in the quarter of the 'Isi Palace,
which was on the left bank of the Lower Harbour,
at the mouth of the ‘Isi Canal. Along the right
bank, on the southern side of this harbour, lay the
Jilurayyah Quarter, and this (as expressly stated
by Ibn Jubayr) also was not far distant from this
bridge, which according to Fakhri was restored,
or rebuilt, by the Caliph Zflhir in the year 622
(a.d. 1225), a deed rendered famous by the pane-
gyrics of his court poets. This bridge, as already
said, was probably first set up at the close of the
fifth century (the eleventh a, d.), but it is curious to
find that Balidhurl (a writer of the middle of the
third century a. h.), describing the conquests of
the Moslems in Mesopotamia after the death of the

xin.] Eastern Baghdad in General 185

Prophet, states that the Arab troops at this date
crossed the Tigris by a bridge of boats moored in
front of ICasr S^lbtir (the Palace of Sapor), which, he
adds. ‘ stood in the place where nowadays the
IKasr 'Isi stands.’ It is evident, therefore, that in
the times of the Persian monarchs a bridge of boats
had existed at the very spot where the later Bridge
of the Palaces was established nearly five hundred
years after their time

Immediately prior to the Mongol siege of Baghdad
in 656 (a. D. 1258) the bridge in front of the palaces
of the Caliphs must have been dismantled, for
Musta'sim and his people shut themselves up in
East Baghdad, evacuating the western quarters,
which were forthwith occupied by the army that
Hfiligh sent to cross the Tigris above the city. After
the sack, however, the bridge at the palaces was
restored, as also (possibly at a later date) one of the
upper bridges, for when Ibn Batfitah visited Baghdad
in 727 (a. D. 1327) he found two bridges of boats,
one opposite the palaces, and the other higher
up, which probably occupied the position of the
older Main Bridge at the ‘Adudl Hospital. These
bridges, Ibn Batfitah adds, were constructed ‘like
the one at Hillah,' and this he has described on
a previous page as ‘a bridge laid on boats connected
together and so ordered that they stretch from one
side of the river to the other, being held by iron
chains that are attached on either bank to great
piles driven firmly into the ground.’ The bridge of
boats which at die present day spans the Tigris at
Baghdad, according to the traveller Ker Porter,

* Ibn Hawkal, 163, note e ; Ibn Jubayr, 236, 227 ; Khatib, folio 108 b ;
Yakut, iv. 839 ; Mushtarik, 350 ; Baladhuri, 249 ; Fakhri, 379.

i86 Baghdad during the Caliphate

measures 670 feet from bank to bank; Abraham
Parsons, on the other hand, gives the length as
871 feet, the roadway being carried over thirty-five
pontoon boats; and it seems probable that this
modem bridge, as already stated, occupies the
position of the one described by Yikfit shortly
before the Mongol siege’.

^ Ibn Batutah, ii. 97, 105 ; Ker Porter, Travels^ ii. 355;. Parsons,
Travel 118.

CHAPTER XIV

rusAfah

The foundation of Rus 4 fah. The Mosque and Palace of Mahdt.
'Askar-Mahdi and the Causeway. The Shrine of Abu i^anifah.
The Cemetery of Khayzur^n. The Tombs of the Caliphs. Later
history of the Mosque of Mahdi. The two highroads in RusMah.
The Straight Road and the Road of the Maydin. The Khudayrtyah
Quarter and Market. The Upper Bridge of Boats.

Our authorities differ in regard to the date of
the foundation of Ru§ifah. Ya'ljlib!, the earliest
of . these, gives the year 143 (a.!). 760) as that in
which Mahdi began to erect buildings here; but
at this time his father Mansflr had not yet laid
the foundations of Western Baghdad. The more
generally accepted account gives the date of 151
(a.d. 768), in the month Shawwdl of which year the
Caliph ManfAr with all his nobles went out from
the new city to receive Mahdi, the heir-apparent,
on his victorious return from KhurisAn at the head
of the army. The Caliph had assigned the eastern
Tigris bank, opposite the Round City, to the troops
for a camping-ground, and here in anticipation of
his son’s coming he had caused a palace to be
built

i88

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

The question of these various dates is not very
material, and probably the difference arises from
the fact that die great mosque of Ru^ifah may
have been founded as early as 143, while the palace
and the houses and fiefs that came to surround it
were only begun when Mahdf returned from his
Persian expedition. The historian Tabart reports
that Manshr caused his son to camp in Rusifah
with his army, in order to keep the heir-apparent
safely at arm’s length ; and further to be able, should
need arise, promptly to quell any feuds that might
break out among his Arab troops in the garrisoji of
the Round City — these being of the rival Yamanite
and Mudarite tribes — ^by aid of the Persian soldiers
from Khurdsfin, who thus camping apart would be
more entirely under the orders of the Caliph. The
building of Ru§ifah was not completed till the year
159 (a.d. 776), that is to say in the second year after
Mahdl had succeeded to tiie Caliphate. The great
mosque by all accounts had been the first building
to be erected in Rusifah, the palace coming later;
and as a consequence, it is especially noted that the
Riblah point (towards Mecca) of this mosque was
more exactly oriented than the Riblah in the great
mosque of the Round City, which had had to con-
form to the plan of the previously built Palace of
Man§ir, on which it abutted; and further, the
Rusifah Mosque was larger and more beautiful than
the mosque of the City of Man§<lr *.

Near the mosque stood the palace, generally

According to Yakut (iii. 279) tjie Rusifah Mosque was also called
Ash-Sharkiyah, or ^ the Eastern/ from a village of this name that had
originally occupied its site, and which, in time, came to be included in
part of Rusifah.

XIV.]

Rusd/ak

189

called the Ka§r-al-Mahdt after its founder. One
authority, however, states that the Palace of RusSfah
was built by Hdriln-ar-Rashld, more probably it was
only restored by him, or possibly he had enlarged
the buildings of his father. The Palace of Mahdi
was originally surrounded by a wall with a ditch,
and close to it was the Maydin or Great Square.
The gardens surrounding it were watered by the
Mahdi Canal ; and part of these grounds are men-
tioned under the name of the Bustin Idaf§ (the
Garden of Idaf§) with the pool (Birkah) into which
the waters of one branch of the Mahdi Canal were
discharged. From the description of this canal and
of the roads through Ru§afah, we may conclude
that the palace and gardens lay near the Tigris
bank, while on the land side stood the mosque, and
the Mayddn was beyond this again, near the road
leading to the U pper Bridge

The new quarter was at first known as ‘Askar-
al-Mahdi (Mahdi’s Camp), but Ar-Rus4fah (the
Causeway) became its more general name, this last
having reference presumably to a causeway which
had carried the road across the swampy ground
formed within the loop of the Tigris by the inflowing
streams which, after being canalized, supplied the
waters of the Nahr Mahdi. The ground here lay
at a lower level than that on the other bank of the
Tigpris, where the City of Mansflr was built, the
difference amounting to from two to three ells, as
was shown by the levels run in order to settle this
point, which had become matter of dispute between
the Caliph Mu*ta§im and his Wazir, Ibn Abi Dfifld.

* Istakhri, 83; Yalcubi, 251; Tabari, iii. 322, 364, 365, 366; Ibn
Serapion, 23 ; Yakut, ii. 783.

igo Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

But though low-lying as compared with the west
bank, Rus&fah and all Eastern Baghdad, which spread
behind it and to the southward, lay well above the
ordinary level of the Tigris flood. I§takhri in the
fourth century (the tenth a.d.) further declares that
the habitations of Eastern Baghdad, as well as the
gardens of the later palaces of the Caliph, derived
their water entirely through the canals brought from
the Nahrawin (as described in the previous chapter),
seeing that except for a small quantity that was
raised for irrigation purposes from the Tigris by
water-wheels (D6Ub), water was not obtainable
from the river bed, the level there being too low ^

In the earlier accounts Rusifah is described as
standing on the eastern Tigris bank, opposite and
as it were balancing the City of Man§flr on the
western side, which last it equalled in area. Writing
in the fourth century (the tenth a.d.) Ya'^tlbl
enumerates in great detail the various fiefs which
Mahdi had granted to his nobles in the space round
the Palace of Ruselfah, and these fiefs covered the
lands to the north-east and south, which afterwards
were occupied by the quarters of Shammcisiyah and
Mukharrim. Adjacent to the Ru§ifah Mosque, and
somewhat above it towards the river bank, stretched
the great cemetery, where in after times stood the
tombs of the later Abbasid Caliphs, while further
to the north again was the tomb of Abu I^anlfah

Khatib, folio 78 b ; Fstakhri, 84. * Rus&fah * was a name common
to many places where there had been ‘causeways’; Yakut in his
Mushtarik mentions eleven. There was another town of this name in
Mesopotamia, near W^sit (see Ibn Serapion, p, 45), but perhaps the
most celebrated Rusifah after that of Baghdad was the Rusifah near
Cordova, built by *Abd-ar-Rahmin, the first Amtr of the Spanish
Omayyads.

XIV,]

Rusdfah

191

the Imim, forming the centre of a quarter to which
in after times it gave its name.

The Imim Abu ffanifah was the founder of the
Idanlfites, the earliest of the four orthodox sects
of the Sunnis, As has already been mentioned,
he aided Manshr in the building of Baghdad, and
dying shortly after this, namely about the year 1 50
(a,d, 767), was buried in what came afterwards to be
known as the Cemetery of Khayzurin, to the north
of Rusifah,- Mukaddasi saW his tpmb here in the
year 375 (a,d, 985), and describes this as having
recently had a portico {Suffah) added to it by one
of the learned men of the day named Abu Ja'far
az-Zammim, A century later, in 479 (a.d, 1086),
when the Saljilk Sultan MS.lik ShSh, with the Wazir
Nizim-al-Mulk, were in Baghdad, they visited the
shrine of Abu I^anlfah, over which, in 459 (a.d.
1067), a dome had been built. Shortly before this
also a college was founded, adjacent to the shrine,
for the teaching of Idanifite law, by one of the
Saljtik Secretaries of State to Alp ArslSn, the father
and predecessor of Milik Shih b The traveller Ibn
Jubayr found this dome still standing when he
visited Baghdad in 580 {a.d. 1184) ; it was a white
cupola, rising high in the air, and he adds that the
shrine had given its name to the surrounding suburb.
This quarter of Abu yanifah Ibn Jubayr describes
as occupying in his day the uppermost part of
Rusifah, far outside the city limits, as these had

^ Hamd- Allah, on the other hand, says that this ‘high building’
was the work of the Mustawfi-al-Mamilik or Provincial Treasurer,
named Sharaf-al-Mulk Abu-Rid^, who had been in the service of
MS,lik Shih. See the British Museum MS. of the Nmkat^ Add. 16736,
folio 148 b; but this passage is wanting in other MSS., and in both
the printed and the lithographed texts of the Nuzhaf.

192 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

then come to be by the building of the new wall
(by the Caliph Mustazhir) round the suburbs of
the palaces.

Ydkfit, in the next century, speaks of the mosque
of Abu Idanifah as adjoining the tombs of the
Caliphs at Rusifah, and Ibn Batlitah, who visited
Baghdad in 727 (a.d. 1327), describes the shrine
(Ziwiyah) of Abu yantfah, stating that a dole of
food was here distributed daily to all comers — ^this,
says Ibn Bat<itah, being the only place in Baghdad
where, at that time, such charity was still main-
tained. The tomb of Abu Idanlfah was visited in
the middle of the last century by the traveller
Niebuhr, whose description will serve equally well
for the shrine seen at the present time. It stands in
the village of Mu‘azzam, so called, says Niebuhr, from
the name Al-A'zam, ‘ the Venerated ’ or ‘ Honoured,’
the title which the Sunnis have given to Abu
Hanifah. The village is situated a half-hour distant
to the north of the present city gate, called the Bib
Mu'azzam, and it lies on the east bank of the Tigris,
opposite to the tombs of the Kizimayn on the western
side. From a topographical point of view the shrine
of Abu Hanifah is of much importance, since it is
one of the few places now extant in East Baghdad
which date from the Caliphate of Mansir

The Cemetery of Khayzurin, in which this tomb
of Abu Hanifah was the most important shrine,
was called after Khayzurin (Bamboo-stem), wife of
the Caliph Mahdi, and the mother of his sons Hidi

^ Mukaddasi, 130 ; Ibn Jubayr, 228 ; Ibn-al-Athir, x. 37, 103 ; Ibn
Khallikan, No. 775, p. 83 ; Yakut, ii. 783 ; Ibn Batutah, ii. 1 12 ; Niebuhr,
ii. 240. This suburb of Abu Hanifah must not be confounded with
the suburb of Hanifah (or of Abu Hanifah) in Western Baghdad, near
the Harim of T^ir, already described, p. 117.

XIV.]

Rusafah

193

and HirAn-ar- Rashid. There had been a grave-
yard here belonging to the Magians, already before
the foundation of Baghdad, and this became the
first Miislim cemetery of the eastern city, the tomb
of Ibn Is^ik, the earliest biographer of the Prophet
Muhammad, being among its notable shrines \

Between the shrine of Abu Hanifah and the
Rus^lfah Mosque stood the buildings erected over
the tombs of the later Caliphs of the Abbasid
d3naasty. Their graves, it would appear, were still
to be seen here as late as the year 727 (a.d. 1327),
a list of thirty-two Caliphs being then given by the
traveller Ibn Batfiteh, who asserts that each tomb-
stone at this time still bore the name of the Caliph
who lay buried beneath. It is, however, difficult
to understand how this could have been the case,
since when the Mongol army sacked Baghdad in
656 (a.d. 1258) the city was set on fire, and the
tombs of the Caliphs are expressly stated to have
all been burnt®. Further, Ibn Battltah could not
possibly have seen in Rusafah the graves of Mahdi
and of H^di, as he asserts, for they had been buried
far. away from Baghdad; while the eight Caliphs
from Mu*tasim to Mu'tamid, whose names also occur

^ Khatib^ folios 113 a, b, 116 a, b; Marasid, i* 378. It is worth
noting that Yakut nowhere mentions the Khayzur^n Cemetery by
name, though he frequently refers to the tomb of Abu IJanifah.
The cemetery of the Kuraysh, as already described in chapter xii, lay
on the western bank of the Tigris, opposite Rusdfah, and adjoining
the K^zimayn shrines. From some confusion, however, the name of
the Kuraysh Cemetery after the middle of the sixth century (the tenth
A.D.) is by some authorities applied to the Rusifah graveyard in East
Baghdad, which lay round the shrine of Abu Hanifah.

* Rashid-ad-Din, 308* Perhaps, however, they were subsequently
restored by order of Huligd, as is stated to have been the case with
the great mosque of the Caliph's Palace and the shrine of the Imim
Mhsd at the Kdzimayn.

194 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

in his list, were those who lived at Simarrfi, where
each was buried in the gorgeous sepulchre which
his successor caused to be built. Hence the list
which I bn Bathtah gives can only be exact for the
later Caliphs, After their return from Simarri,
however, the Abbasids from Mu'tadid onwards were
(with a few exceptions) buried in either East or
West Baghdad; and, beginning with Rddi and
Mustakfl, the sepulchres of fourteen Caliphs occu-
pied the courts outside the Rusdfah Mosque, which,
from the middle of the fourth century (the tenth
A. D.) onwards, came to be a city of the dead, standing
aloof from the neighbouring inhabited quarters.
The penultimate Caliph Mustansir, between the
years 623 and 640 (a.d, 1226 and 1242), surrounded
the cemetery by a strong wall built of burnt bricks ;
and at this time the royal tombs were of imposing
appearance, being kept in good repair, the rents
of, certain lands having been allotted for the pay of
custodians and the expenses of upkeep

1 Ibn Batutah, ii, in ; Marasid, i, 472, The list of the tombs of
the Caliphs buried in Baghdad is given by Yakut in one article
(ii. 783), and those buried at Sdinarrd in another (iii. 22). The
details, however, are not quite exact, as a reference to Ibn-al-Athir
and other authorities proves, and the following list may serv6 to
correct these inaccuracies. Of the thirty-seven Abbasid Caliphs, the
first fifteen, as the annalists remark, were none of them buried inside
Baghdad. The Caliph Saffdh, the founder of the dynasty, was buried
in his palace at Anb^r ; Mansfir died on the pilgrimage, and was
buried at the well called Bir Maymfin in Arabia; Mahdt died while
on the march from Baghdad into Media, at the village called Ar-Radhdh,
in the province of Mdsabadhin, and was buried there under a walnut-
tree; H^di was buried in the garden of 'tsfibid, a village owned by
his brother *ls^ in the suburb outside Eastern Baghdad (not technically
included within the city limits), the exact position of which, however,
is unknown; Hirfin-ar-Rashid died and was buried at Ttis or Meshed
in Khurisfin ; in regard to the unfortunate Amin, after being decapi-
tated in the garden outside the Anbir Gate of West Baghdad, the

XIV.]

Rusdfah

195

The destruction wrought by the catapults during
the second siege of Baghdad, in the time of Musta'ln,
resulted in the depopulation and rapid decline of
Rusifah. A generation later came the building

trunk of his body was probably at first temporarily buried there, his
head having been sent to Mimfin in Khurisin, and the subsequent
tomb of Amtn in the Kdzima3rn has been described in chapter xii ;
his brother Mamfin was buried at Tarsus in Cilicia, having died on
a military expedition against the Greeks. The next eight Caliphs
from Mu tasim to Mu'tamid all lived at Simarrd, and there lay buried,
with the exception possibly of Musta'in, who, after the disasters of the
second siege of Baghdad, was taken down the river to WHsiJ and put
to death, it being uncertain if his body was brought back to Simarri
for burial. After the return of the Caliphate from Simarri, Mu*tadid,
the sixteenth Caliph, was the first to be buried within the walls of
Baghdad. He and his three sons, the Caliphs *AH Muktafi, Muktadir,
and Kihir, as also his grandson Muttaki, were all buried in West
Baghdad in the Tihirid IJarfm. Ridi, the twentieth Caliph, the
predecessor (and brother) of Muttaki, was the first of those buried at
RusAfah, but his tomb lay apart from the later royal sepulchres, which,
lying all close together, began with that of the twenty-second Caliph
Mustakfi, who died some years after being deposed in 334 (a.d. 946).
For the next three centuries, with three exceptions, all the succeeding
Caliphs, being fourteen in number, were buried at Rusifah, the three
exceptions being:’ the twenty-ninth Caliph Mustarshid, killed in battle
in 529 (a.d. 1135) ii®ar Hamaddn, and buried outside Marighah; bis
son Mansfir Rashid, deposed in 530 (a.d. 1136), afterwards slain in
Khfizistdn and buried outside Isfahin ; and the thirty-third Caliph
Mrstadt, who was buried in 575 (a.d. 1180), in the Ka?r *tsi Quarter
of West Baghdad, near the Lower Bridge. Where Musta'sim, the last
of the Abbasid Caliphs, was laid to his rest, the contemporary
chronicles do not state, but if we are to believe Ibn Batutah, and give
credit to the statement that the tombs of the Caliphs were restored after
the Mongol invasion, his tomb also was among those of his ancestors
in Rusifah. Ibn-al-Furat, folio ii8b, states that in the year 647, on
the 2oth of Sha'bin (November 29, 1249), the daughter of the Caliph
Musta'sim died, and she was buried in the Ddr-al-IJasan ‘of the
Golden Palaces* (Ad-Dir-al-Mudhahhabah), dirges being composed
by the court poets on this event. It is uncertain what palace is here
meant, for the IJasani Palace can hardly have been standing at this
late date, and the Jdhirid IJarim (in West Baghdad) was already
a ruin at the beginning of the seventh century A.H., when Yakut
wrote.

O 5

196 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

of the new palaces of the Caliphs on the river bank
a mile or more below this, and the great mosque
at Rusifah, in little over two centuries after its
foundation, now stood solitary among ruins, sur-
rounded by the graveyards of Eastern Baghdad.
It remained in use, however, during six centuries as
a congregational mosque for the Friday prayers,
since all our authorities name it as one of the three
great mosques of East Baghdad 5 and as late as 727
(a.d. 1327), three-quarters of a century after the
Mongol invasion, Ibn Bathrah mentions it as yet
standing, though apparently at the present day no
traces are visible of the ancient structure *.

Rus&fah, at the close of the third century (the
ninth a.d.), when this was still one of the three
populous northern quarters of East__ Baghdad, is
described by Ya'khbi as traversed by two thorough-
fares, which must have started from the neighbour-
hood of the KhurS-Scln Road and the eastern end
of the Main Bridge. The first of these thorough-
fares was that in which stood the Palace of Mahdi
and the great mosque, and it is stated that this
was ‘a straight road’ {Tartk musiaMni). Most
streets in an oriental city, as is well known, are
much the reverse of straight, and hence it seems
not improbable that this road followed the line of
the original ‘ causeway ’ from which Rusifah had
derived its name. The second thoroughfare was

^ Ibn Batutah, ii. iii. Probably excavations made in the tract of
land to the south of the present village of Mu azzam might bring to
light the foundations of the old Rus^fah Mosque; also, possibly,
traces of the palace of Mahdi, This last, according to Khatib (folio
77 b), was, unlike the rest of Rusifah, built of burnt bricks, as doubtless
also was the mosque; and such bricks would not have entirely
crumbled to dust even after the lapse of eleven centuries.

XIV.] Rusafah 197.

that passing to the east of the Mayddn or Great
Square of Rusdfah, which appears to have opened
on the land side of the palace and mosque. On
this road stood the palace of the Wazir Fadl, son
of the Chamberlain Rabi‘, who have both been
mentioned in a previous chapter, and near this
again was the Rasr of Umm Habib, the daughter
of H irhn-ar-Rashid. This palace, according to Y ikiit,
overlooked the roadway which he calls the Shiri'-
al-Maydin (the Road of the Square), and its lands
had been granted in fief to the Princess Umm Habib,
after the death of the Chamberlain Rabi‘, by her
half-brother the Caliph Mamfin. In later times the
palace served as a dower-house for the daughters
of the reigning Caliph, and finally its grounds came
to be annexed to those of the neighbouring Palace
of Mahdi in Rusifah.

Yikfit describes the Road of the Maydin as com-
municating directly, on the south, with the road
going to the Tuesday Market on the further side
of the Mukharrim Quarter, while to the north it
gave access to the Shammislyah Quarter. The
upper part of the road of the Maydin was known
as the Khudayr Market, where in the days of Ya'kfibl
Chinese goods and other rarities were exposed for
sale. This market is often referred to as the Khu-
dayriyah, and at a later time water-jars were sold
here. Subsequently it was called the Khadariyyln
Quarter (other spellings of the name also are given),
and not far off was the shrine of Abu Hanlfah,
firewood being sold near this at a place on the river
bank. In early days a mosque stood here cJ^lled
the Masjid Khudayr, and there was the Road of
Skiffs (Xarlk-az-Zawdrllj:) on the Tigris bank, by

igS Baghdad during the Caliphate

which the quarter of the Khudayr Market probably
had its line of communication with the Upper Bridge
of Boats. In this neighbourhood also must have
been situated the Palace of Wadd^jti, built under the
superintendence of a man from Anbir of that name,
by order of the Caliph Mahdi, which is described
as standing near Rus&fah.

The exact position of the eastern end of the
Upper Bridge, crossing the Tigris from the Uarblyah
Quarter to the Shammisiyah Quarter and Ru§ifah,
is nowhere given, but from many incidental notices
this must have been at a point not far below the
ShammcLslyah Gate. Here the bridge end was
closed by a gate often referred to during the Musta'in
siege under the name of the Bridge Gate (Bib-al-
Jisr), and the highroad of the Rusifah Quarter,
passing through this, traversed the Upper Bridge
to the palace of the Tihirid IJarim on the western
bank

^ Baladhuri, 295; Ya'kubi, 253; Tabari, iii. 367; Yakut, ii. 290,
403, 453; iii* 5^31; iv. io8, 123; Marasid, i, 357; Ibn-al-Athir, vi.
114, 115.

CHAPTER XV

THE SHAMMASIyAH QUARTER

The great Northern Road. The Road of the Bridge and YahyU.
The Road of the Mahdt Canal and Silk Ja'far. Palaces of Ad-DOr.
The Barmecide Fiefs. Sfik Khdlid and the Kasr-at-Tin. D^r Faraj.
Dayr Darmilis and Dayr Samilu. The Shammistyah Gate. Three
Gates Quarter. Miliktyah Cemetery. The Shrine of Vows. The
Palace of Mdnis. The Barad^n Road and Bridge. Barmecide Houses
and the Hutamiyah. D4r-ar-RClm: the Christian Quarter. The
Dayr-ar-Rum or the Nestorian Monastery. The Jacobite Church.
Other Christian Monasteries in West and East Baghdad. Christian
Festivals in Baghdad. The Nestorian Missionary to China. The
Market of Nasr and the Iron Gates. The Palace of Abu-n~Nasr near
the Baradlln Bridge.

The Shammasiyah Quarter lay on the east side
of Rusifah, and from this it was divided by the
great northern road, which, turning off at the head
of the Main Bridge, went to Mosul up the left
bank of the Tigris. This road passed out from
East Baghdad by the gate called the Bib-ash-
Shammisiyah ; it was known in the lower part as
the Road of the Bridge (Tarlk-al-Jisr), here being
the market quarter called the Yal^yi; in its
upper part, near the ShammUsiyah Gate, it took
the name of the Road of the Mahdi Canal, from
the watercourse which flowed along it, and here

200

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

lay the market called the Stllj: Ja'far. Between
the upper and the lower part the road traversed
the place named Ad-Dhr (the Palaces), which
Yiktit describes as having stood at no great
distance from the shrine of Abu Idanifah, though
when Yclklit himself wrote in the year 623 (a. D.
1226) AdrDftr had long since become a complete
ruin.

During the greater part of the reign of Hirdn-
ar-Rashid, when the Barmecides ’ were at the height
of their prosperity, Yahy^ with his sons Fadl and
Ja'far had continued to live in their houses on
the Square (Rahbah) of the Khuld Palace in West
Baghdad (probably the Review Ground), but some
time before his tragic death Ja'far had begun to
build himself a palace at Ad-Dhr, though he did
not live to take up his residence there. The
fiefs granted to the Barmecides in East Baghdad
appear to have stretched from Ad-Dhr on the high-
road of the ShammcLslyah Gate, across to the road
going toward the BaradS,n Gate, where, as will be
mentioned presently, other of their palaces occur.
Mukaddasi in 375 (a. D. 985) refers to Sfik Yaljyd,

^ The Barmecides were of Persian origin, from Balkh. Khdlid ibn
Barmak had been one of the Wazirs of the first Abbasid Caliph Saffih,
and in the reign of Mansur he was made Governor of Mosul. His
advice to that Caliph, in the matter of the Sassanian Palaces at
Madi-in, has been mentioned in chapter ii. In the next generation his
son Yahy^ became Wazir on the accession of Hirfin-ar-Rashid, who
for many years left the government of the empire almost entirely to
him and his son FadJ. Ja'far, the other son of Yahyd, was more
especially the boon companion of the Caliph, and during seventeen
years the Barmecides were thus supreme both in the government
offices and in the palace. From their many fiefs in the Shammisiyah,
it seems probable that the market street called Sfik Ja'far and the
Nahr Fadl, as the upper part of the Mahdi Canal was called, were
named respectively after the two sons of the Wazir Yahyd.

XV.] The Skammastyah Quarter 201

adding that behind it was a tomb which adjoined
the shrine of Abu Idanifah. This market, accord-
ing to Ya'kiibi, took its name from a certain Yahyi,
son of Al-Walid; Yi^At, on the other hand, states
that it was named after Yahyi, ibn Khilid the
Barmecide, Wazir of Hirfin-ar-Rashid, and this last
was doubtless the popular attribution.

Nearer to the Shammisiyah Gate was the Market
of Khilid the Barmecide, Wazir of the first Abbasid
Caliph Saffilj and father of Yahyi just mentioned.
Afterwards the Kasr-at-Tin (the Clay Castle) occu-
pied its site, built either by Yaljyi or by his son
Fadl (for Yil5:At in different passages mentions the
one and the other as the founder), and this castle is
frequently referred to during the second siege of
Baghdad in 251 (a. D. 865) in the time of Musta'ln.
In the seventh century (the thirteenth a, d.), when
YikClt wrote, the IJasr-at-Tin had fallen so com-
pletely to ruin, that its exact position even was
matter of doubt, but from what Tabari states in-
cidentally when relating the events of the second
siege, it must have stood very near the ShammA-
siyah Gate. After the fall of the Barmecides their
various fiefs passed into the possession of Zubaydah,
wife of HArfin-ar-Rashid, and during the reign of
Mam An, when Zubaydah had fallen from power,
they were granted to TAhir, from whom they were
inherited by his descendants, the various TTAhirid
princes and governors. Immediately above SAIj:
YaljyA, and doubtless also on the road leading up
to the ShammAsiyah Gate, was a palace called the
DAr Faraj, after Faraj a MamlAk (slave) of a certain
HamdAnah, concubine of HArAn-ar-Rashid, who had
manumitted her. Faraj also became the freedman

202

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

of the Caliph, and his palace is described as being
one of the finest in this quarter b

The Shammisiyah Gate, which stood at the
upper end of the road, occupied the north-western
extremity of the city wall which enclosed the
Shammdsiyah Quarter. Shammisiyah has the mean-
ing of Deaconry {Skammds^ signifying ‘a deacon’
in Arabic), and the place originally had been occu-
pied by several Nestorian or Jacobite monasteries,
two being especially celebrated, namely the Dayr
Darmilis and the Dayr Samilfi. In the early days
of the Abbasid Caliphate the Samilfi Monastery
occupied a considerable tract of ground beside the
river, stretching in the direction towards Baradin ;
near it ran the Mahdi Canal (or the Nahr Fadl),
and there was an extensive cane-brake in its vicinity
where wild-fowl were shot The Dayr is described
as a magnificent edifice, inhabited by many monks,
and it took its name from Samdlfi, a town of the
Armenian frontier, which H 4 rfin-ar-Rashld had
captured in the expedition of the year 163 (a. D.
780) ®. The Caliph caused the whole population
of this place to be transported to Baghdad, for by
the terms of the capitulation it had been stipulated
that none of the families were to be separated, and

^ Ibn Serapion, 23; YaTcubi, 253, 254; Mukaddasi, 130; Ibn
Kutaybah, 193 ; Tabari, iii. 1 561 ; Yakut, ii. 522 ; iii. 195,200; iv.114;
Mushtarik, 184.

* A borrowed word, from the Syriac Shamosko. See Fiankel,
p. 276. For the position of these monasteries see Plan No. VII.

* The Byzantine chronicler Theophanes (i. 453) mentions the siege
of this place by the Caliph Aaron (as he calls him). It lay in the
Armeniac Theme, and he writes the name 2ij/zaXoiof, but what place
now represents this fortress is an unsolved problem in the historical
geography of the Byzantine Empire, and the Arab historians un-
fortunately offer no indications for fixing the site.

XV.]

The Shammdsiyah Quarter

203

they were settled on the lands to the north of East
Baghdad, where was built the monastery which
afterwards went by the name of their native place.
With the lapse of time the monastery fell to ruin,
and the author of the Mar&dd, who wrote about the
year a. d. i 300, states that all trace of its buildings
had then long since disappeared.

The land in this neighbourhood was a low-lying
tract near the mouth of the Fadl Canal, which ran
into the Tigris above the Shammislyah Gate, as
has already been described. This tract is often
spoken of as the Sa^i.r4 or Plain of the Shammdsiyah,
also as the Rakkah, a term especially denoting lands
that are covered by the overflow of a river. During
the siege of Baghdad in the reig^ of Musta'ln, the
assailants had their main camp in this plain of the
Shammdsiyah, and many doughty deeds took place
before the Shammdsiyah Gate, which was defended
by great catapults set on the city walls Outside
the Shammdsiyah Quarter to the north-east and
east, where, according to Ya'kdbl, the highroad to
Nahrawdn and Persia finally left the city limits,
was the suburb frequently mentioned in the accounts
of the first siege of Baghdad — during the reign
of Amin — as also during that of Musta‘ln, and
it was called Three Gates (Thaldthah Abwdb)

* Tafcari, iii. 1551, 1559; Yakut, ii. 659, 660, 670; iii. 317 ; Marasid,
i, 432; Baladhuri, 170; Ibn Serapion, 23,

*■* Ya'kubi, 269, Invariably written without the article; hence it
cannot have any reference to the three great city gates of Shammi-
sJyah, Baraddn, and Khur^ls^n. Mas'udi, vi. 443; Tabari, iii. 1576.
Probably near the Three Gates was the village called B&b-ash-Shim,
‘the Syrian Gate,’ of which the author of the M^arasid (i. 112) writes
that in his day, namely about the year 700 (a.D. 1300), this was the
name of a smdl hamlet in the Khdlis district standing at no great
distance from Rusifah.

204 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Musta'ln, profiting by the experience of the former
siege, in 251 (a. d. 865) caused all the houses lying
between the city wall of the Shammdsiyah and this
place to be demolished, in order that the assailants
might not find shelter here for the attack. The
•houses of Baghdad, therefore, in those days stretched
as far north as the Three Gates ; but all this quarter
suffered greatly during the Musta'in siege, and falling
to rhin in the next century, the whole of this site
afterwards came to be occupied by the palaces of the
Buyid princes.

Outside the BaradSn Gate, which stood next to
the Shammisiyah Gate on the south-east, stretched
the Milikfyah Cemetery, called after a certain 'Abd-
Allah ibn Milik, who was the first person to be
buried here. The Mdlikiyah is mentioned as late
as the year 530 (a. d. 1136), when the Saljiik Sultan
Mas'ud, who was then besieging Baghdad, pitched
his camp a.t this place. This, the third of the Baghdad
siegjes, and which lasted for two months, ended in
the^ deposition of the Caliph Manshr Rishid^, but
no details of the siege operations are recorded.
'Abd- Allah ibn MUlik, from whom the graveyard
had taken its name, is probably the captain of the
guard who was a special favourite of Khayzurin,
the wife of the Caliph Mahdi. During the reign
of her son Hirhn*ar-Rashid this 'Abd- Allah became
Governor of the Palace and Chief of Police, and
on one occasion commanded the troops sent on an
expedition against the Greek frontier. The M&li-
klyah was also known as the Baradin Cemetery,,
and near this was the chapel (Mu^lli) especially

^ Not to be confounded with HarOn-ar-Rasliid. Khatib? folio 114 a ;
Ibn;al-Athir, ix. 26 ; Mas*udi, vi. 269, 308,

XV.] The Shammdstyah Quarter 205

set apart for the prayers of the festival at
of Ramadan Fast.

Here stood a tomb called the Kabr-an-Nudhflr
(the Sepulchre of the Place of Vows), where, accord-
ing to the popular belief, votive olferings having
been made, the prayers of the Faithful were in-
variably granted, and Khatlb gives an edifying
anecdote relating how *Adud-ad-Dawlah the Buyid
prince here obtained the accomplishment of his
desires. The grave is said to have been that of
a descendant of the Caliph *Ali, namely of a certain
'Abd-Allah or 'Ubayd-Allah, great-grandson of ‘Ali
Zayn-al-' Abidin (the fourth Shi'ah Imdm). He
having been enticed to this lonely place by the
emissaries of one of the Abbasid Caliphs, met his
death by falling into the pit which had been dug
for this murderous purpose and artfully covered over,
the unfortunate man remaining buried alive under
the earth thrown in by those who were lying in wait.
This Sanctuary of the Vows, Yi^ht, writing in the
seventh century (the thirteenth a. d.), describes as
still standing, being situated about half a mile
beyond the city wall of later East Baghdad. The
author of the Mardsid adds that originally the
streets of the Rusdfah suburbs had extended beyond
this chapel, though of course in his time all this
district had long fallen to ruin, and by the year
700 (a. d. 1 300) the tomb was standing far out in
the plain, half a league distant, he says, from the
houses of the town

The Buyids became masters of Baghdad in the year
334 (a.d. 945), and their buildings in this region will be
described in a subsequent chapter ; but in the latter
^ Khatib, folio 1 14 a ; Yakut, iv. 28 ; Marasid, ii. 385,

2 o 6 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch,

years of the preceding century a great palace was
erected immediately outside the ShammSslyah Gate
by Mhnis, the general of the armies of Muktadir,
and it was near the Shammisiyah Gate that this
unfortunate Caliph met his death at the hands of
the insurgent troops.

The Barad4n Road divided the Shammisiyah
Quarter into two halves, forming the line of com-
munication between the Baradin Gate and the head
of the Main Bridge. Ya'khbi refers to it under the
name of ‘the Road to the Left,’ namely from
the Khurisin Road, and it must have turned off
this somewhat lower down than the bifurcation of
the great northern road leading to the Shammi-
siyah Gate. On the lower part of the Baradin
Road had stood the houses of Khilid the Barme-
cide and of his son Yahyi, with those of the latter’s
two sons Fadl and Ja'far. These houses probably
lay to the left hand of the road, on the western side,
being connected at the back with the Sik Yakyi
occupying part of the adjacent road to the Shammi-
siyah Gate, as has already been described. Above
the Barmecide houses came the Baradin Bridge
(Kantarah Baradin), where the road crossed the
Mahdi Canal not far from the Baradin Gate, and
near here had been a fief granted by Mahdi to
another Barmecide called Abu ‘Ubayd Mu*iwi)?ah
of Balkh. The Baradin Bridge had been built by
a certain As-Sari ibn al-Idutam, who had owned
land, building a palace here, and whose name was
likewise preserved in that of a village near Baghdad,
which having been his property was called Al-
yufamiyah.

The triangle enclosed by the line of the city

XV,] The Shammdsiyah Quarter 207

wall and the highroads of the Baradin and Khurisdn
Gates, was traversed by the lower part of the Mahdl
Canal, on which stood first the quarter called the
House of the Greeks, then the Market of Nasr, and
below this the Iron Gates, near the point where the
Mahdi Canal bifurcated, one branch flowing back
to Ru§eLfah, while the other continued along the
Khurisan Road to the Khurdsin Gate. The Dir-
ar-Rfimiyin, more generally called the Ddr-ar-Rlim
(the House of the Greeks), was the Christian
Quarter of mediaeval Baghdad, which existed down
to the time when Fakhri wrote, namely the year
700 (a. d, 1300). Its position is approximately fixed
by Ibn Serapion, who describes the course of the
Mahdi Canal as given in the preceding paragraph,
Ydkfit also speaking of this quarter as situated
in the neighbourhood of the Shammislyah Quarter
and at no great distance from the tombs of the
Caliphs in Ru§ifah In the usage of mediaeval
Arabic, the name Rdmtytn or Rdm (representing
the Romaioi or Greeks) had come to be used for
the Christians in general, whether Greek or Latin *,
and the Dir-ar-Rfim was thus the common name
for the Christian Quarter in Baghdad, The Chris-
tians in Mesopotamia, who were subjects of the
Abbasid Caliphs, belonged for the most part to
the two heterodox churches of the Jacobites and

^ Ibn Serapion, 23 ; Fakhri, 190; Yakut, ii. 662, 783 ; iii. 317. By
an oversight Ddr-ar-R&m has been omitted in the index to Yakut.

® The Spanish Moslems, for instance, call their Christian fellow
countrymen Ar-Rtim. An excellent summary of the political and
religious condition of the Christians who inhabited the dominions of
the Abbasid Caliphs is given in Kremer, iL 172 to 176. See also
Gibbon, Decline and Fall^ chapter xlvii ; and for the Nestorian
bishoprics of Asia, Sir H, Yule, Cathay, pp. Ixxxviii, ccxliv.

2o8

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

the Nestorians, but the dominant sect was that
of the Nestorians, and hence their patriarch (or
Catholicos) had the right of residence in Baghdad,
a privilege which the Jacobites had always sought
in Vain to obtain.

In the Christian Quarter of the Dir-ar-R6m was
the church and the great monastery called the
Dayr-ar-Rhm. This, according to Yi!^6t, had been
founded in the reigm of the Caliph Mahdi, that is to
say between the years 158 and 169 (a. D. 775 and
785), at which time certain Greek prisoners of war,
having been settled in this part of Baghdad, the
Greek House was built by them with a church
in its immediate neighbourhood. This church,
either from its origin or by subsequent arrangement,
belonged exclusively to the Nestorians ; it was very
large, being solidly constructed and beautifully orna-
mented, and in the monastery {Dayr) which was
subsequendy built on the eastern side of the
Church, the Catholicos (the word was corrupted by
Arabs into Al-Jclthilik) had his cell or dwelling-
house. Between the church and monastery a door
of communication existed, through which, on the
festivals and when Holy Communion was to be
celebrated, the monks could pass to and fro. The
buildings of the original Greek House are described
as standing at some distance apart from the church
and monastery; and they would appear to have
covered a considerable area, for within the compass
of the walls was a broad court surrounded by
porticoes.

The author of the Mar add remarks that ‘ among
the Christian sects, no one of the one sect will pray
in the church of the other sect,’ and he continues

XV.] The Skammdstyah Quarter 209

that for this reason the Jacobites had their own
particular church in Baghdad, situated near the
great church of the Nestorians, this Jacobite
church being especially remarkable for the number
of wonderful pictures shown there, which, with some
other works of art that it contained, caused the place
to be much visited by strangers.

In all ordinary circumstances the Christians
appear to have enjoyed complete toleration in
Baghdad under the government of the Caliphs,
for besides these two churches with the g^reat
Monastery of the Dayr-ar-Rtim, they possessed
many other lesser monasteries in different quarters
of the city. Thus in Karkh, on the western side of
the Tigfris there was the Monastery of the Virgins
in the fief of the Christians, which has already
been mentioned; also the Dayr Durtd. and the
Dayr-al-I$ib4b upstream, beyond the Zubaydlyah
Fief ; while in the Katrabbul District to the north-
ward of the Round City stood the monastery called
the Dayr Ashmfind, after the founder, whose body
lay buried here. The festival of Ashmfini was
celebrate^ on the third day of the month Tishrln I,
corresponding with October, and this monastery,
being a very pleasant place of resort, was much
visited by the people of Baghdad. Its exact position
is not given, but it was at no great distance from
the northern, suburbs.

In addition to the foregoing, Yikfit mentions
two other monasteries as of Western Baghdad,
though again from the lack of precise information
the position of neither the one nor the other of
these can be exactly fixed. One was the Dayr
Midyfin, lying on the bank of the Karkh4yi Canal,

BAGHDAD P

210

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

which the author of the Marddd says was also
known as the Dayr Sarkhis (this last name being
probably a clerical error for Sarjts, i. e. the Monas-
tery of Sergius), and this is described as a fine
place, much frequented by pleasure-seekers from
the city. The other monastery in the vicinity of
West Baghdad was the Dayr-ath-Tha'dlib (the
Monastery of the Foxes), and concerning the
position of this there was much dispute. Some
authorities state that it stood nearly two miles
distant from Baghdad, on the Kfifah highroad
towards §arsar, and near the village of I^drithiyah ;
while according to others the Monastery of the
Foxes was the building that stood near the shrine
of Ma'rfif Karkhi, and hence was either to be
identified with the Dayr-al-Jithilik (the Monastery
of the Catholicos or Patriarch), being merely its other
name, or else was a second monastery which had
stood alongside of it.

In Eastern Baghdad five monasteries are men-
tioned by Ydkfit in addition to the great Dayr-
ar-Rfim of the Christian Quarter. Upstream were
the two monasteries outside the Shammdsiyah Gate,
namely the Dayr Darm^llis and the Dayr Samalfi,
which have already been noticed ; while in the
district immediately to the north of this, near the
village of Mazrafah, was the Dayr Sdbfir (the
Monastery of Sapor), ‘very populous, pleasant, and
with many gardens.’ Likewise near Mazrafah and
at some four leagues distant from Baghdad stood
the Dayr Jurjis (the Monastery of St. George) with
numerous gardens and fine fruit-trees, of which
Yikfit speaks as one of the pleasantest places to
visit in this quarter of the city. Also in East

XV.] The Skammdsiyah Quarter an

Baghdad, but downstream, below the southern
quarters which surrounded the palaces of the Caliph,
was the monastery called the Dayr-az-Zandaward,
lying near the Azaj Gate which will be mentioned
in a later chapter. Its gardens had been cele-
brated for the oranges and grapes grown here,
‘the best in all Baghdad,’ Y&hht states; but when
the author of the Mardsid wrote, about the year 700
(a. d. 1 300), both the gardens and the Monastery of
Zandaward had entirely disappeared, its site being
then occupied by the houses and streets of New
Baghdad.

The account which Ydkht gives of these monas-
teries is in the main derived from the work of
Shibushti, who composed his Kitdb-ad-Diydrdt (the
Book of the Monasteries) in Egypt, and who died
about the year 390 (a. d. 1000) ^ Many of these
establishments, by the year 623 (a. d. 1226), when
YSklit wrote, would appear to have already fallen
to ruin, their monks having died or dispersed, but
in the days of Yikht the gardens of the monasteries
still for the most part remained, and are noted by
him as ‘pleasant places’ whither the people of
Baghdad went on festival days. The author of
the Mardsid, however, writing in the year 700
(a. d. 1300), and therefore after the Mongol siege,
in almost every case, having epitomized the notice

^ The MS. of this work (lacking the first thirteen folios) exists in
the Berlin Library, under the No. 8321, which MS. Ahlwardt in the
Catalogue has in error ascribed to Abu-l-Faraj Al-Isfahfini, the author
of the Fihrist. It is to be hoped that before long this important MS.
may be published by Mr. F. J. Heer, who in his recent work {Die
Mstorischen und geogra^Mschen Quellen in Jacufs WSrierbuch, p. 88,
Strassbmg, Triibner, 1899) has given an interesting account of the MS.
and its contents.

P 2

212

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

given by Y4kiit, adds that all trace of this or that
monastery had in his time disappeared. As already
said, there is evidence to show that in former times
under the rule of the Abbasid Caliphs, Christians
in Baghdad were not subject to any molestation or
oppression by the officials of the government. In
moments of popular commotion their churches and
monasteries doubtless were plundered by the rabble,
but the mosques of the Shl'ahs and the Sunnis
alternately had to suffer a like experience, when
the mob, in the nominal interests of the one sect
or the other, broke loose from all restraint and
rioted through the outlying quarters of the great
city.

When describing the mother church of the Nesto-
rians near the Dayr-ar-RUm, YikUt relates how it
was the custom of the Moslems of Baghdad to
visit this church on Sundays and on festivals, the
crowd then being often very great of those who
came to look at ‘ the young deacons and monks,
with their handsome faces ’ ; and he speaks of
‘ dancing, drinking, and pleasure-making ’ as matters
for which ' these Dayrs were for the most part
visited. YikUt adds that the Christians in Baghdad
were wont to celebrate each of their great festivals
at a different monastery; and in his day the most
celebrated of these feast days were the four Sundays
of the Festival of the Fast (doubtless Easter and
the three following Sundays), of which the first
Sunday festival was held at the monastery called
the Dayr-al-'Asiyah, the second at the Dayr-az-
Zurayklyah (but neither of these monasteries is
elsewhere mentioned), the third Sunday festival
being at the Dayr-az-Zandaward, and the fourth

XV.] The Shammdsiyah Quarter 213

at the Dayr Darmalis; and he adds ‘to all these
the Christians are wont to assemble, together with
many other pleasure-seekers^.’

As showing the equal footing on which the
Christians lived with the Moslems under the
Abbasid Caliphs, a translation may be given of
the account left us by the Moslem author of the
Kit&b-al-Fihrist, relating an interview which he had
with a certain Nestorian missionary, whom he met
in Baghdad during the reign of the Caliph Tdi*.
The passage, further, is of historical importance as
giving the limit in date of the Nestorian missions
sent into further Asia ; for, as is well known by the
Singanfu inscription and other similar documents,
Nestorian Christianity had at one time spread
throughout the length and breadth of Asia, pene-
trating into the Chinese empire, and it lay with
the chief Patriarch of Mesopotamia to appoint the
bishops who resided in India, Central Asia, and
the far East. The author of the Fihrist states
that the missionary he met was a monk, a native
of Najrcln, which was a Nestorian bishopric of
Southern Arabia, and that he met him after his
return from a mission to China in the year 377
(a. D. 987). The narrative in the Fihrist then
continues : —

‘ Now this man of the people of Najrin had
been dispatched some seven years before this
date by the Catholicos (or Patriarch of Baghdad)
to the land of China, there being sent with him
five other men of the Christians, of those whose
business it is to attend to the affairs of religion,

* Yakut, ii. 6i6, 643, 650, 659, 660, 662, 665, 666, 670, 680, 695 ;
Marasid, i. 426, 429, 430, 431, 432, 436, 440.

214 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

And six years after they had thus gone forth, this
monk with one other alone of all that company
had returned alive (to Baghdad), whom I met in
the Christian Quarter of the Dir-ar-R6m behind
the church, finding him to be a man in the prime
of life with a fine figure, but sparing of words unless
he were questioned. So I asked him what had
been the cause of his remaining away so long a
time, and what reason had brought him back
thence, whereupon he recounted to me all the
adventures that had befallen him, and what had
hindered him in the journey. He said in conclu-
sion that the Christians who had been of old in
the lands of China were now disappeared, and
that their possessions had perished, so that in
the whole land hardly one Christian now remained
alive, and though in ancient times the Christians
there had possessed a church, this also was now
in ruin. And the monk added that when he had
at length seen how none remained there of his
religion, he had finally returned home,- travelling
back in less time than it had taken him to perform
the voyage outV

On the Mahdl Canal, immediately below the
Greek Quarter, was the Market of Nasr, called
after Nasr the son of Mdlik, of the Khuzd'ah

^ The description of China, which follows, is very curious, but this
is not the place to attempt its translation, and many of the names of
Chinese towns and provinces have unfortunately been so corrupted by
the copyist of the MS. as to be almost unrecognizable. The text will
be found in the Kitdb<il-Fihrist^ p. 349. The editor, Professor Fliigel,
has made the mistake in the preface, p. xiv, and his notes, p. 184,
of supposing that the Dir-ar-Mm, here mentioned, refers to Con-
stantinople: see Kremer, ii. 173, note 2, who rightly points out
that it is the Christian Quarter of Baghdad, which is the place
intended.

XV,] The Shammasiyah Quarter 215

tribe, to whom the Caliph Mahdi had granted
these lands in fief. This Na^r is best known as
father of the celebrated ascetic Ahmad ibn Nasr,
one of the martyrs in the cause of orthodoxy, whom
the Caliph Wdthik put to death in 231 (a, d. 846).
He had preached against the Caliph, declaring
him to be a heretic for denying the dogma that
the Kurin was ‘uncreate’; and for witnessing that
the Book of Allah was eternal he suffered death.
Khatib, from whom Yikfit has copied most of his
information about these places, adds that there was
originally a mosque in the Market of Nasr, but that,
this fell to ruin at the time of the second siege of
Baghdad, under Musta'ln. Khatib further adds
that a certaCin Abu Nasr Hishim had bought from
As-Sarl the original owner of the fief on the road
near the Baradin Bridge, a parcel of land on which
Abu Na§r built himself a palace. This was the
finest building in all the neighbouring quarter, at
least in the judgement of the Emperor of Constan-
tinople, to whom (so Khatib reports) a drawing
representing the various quarters of Baghdad
having been submitted, his Majesty pointed out
this palace as to his mind the most magnificent.
Finally, the Iron Gates (Al-Abw 4 b-al-Hadld) de-
scribed by Ibn Serapion as in the Nasr Market,
may possibly be identical with the gate called the
Bdb Na§r, which is mentioned by Ibn-al-Athir in his
chronicle under the year 519 (a. D. 1125) as situated
not far from the Shammisiyah plain, though it is
to be remarked that no other writer refers at this
late date either to the Nasr Market or the Iron

^ See above, p. 206. The name is also written in some MSS,
Abu-n-Nadr Hkshim ibn al-Kisim*

2i6 Baghdad during the Caliphate

Gates, and it is therefore doubtful whether they
existed after the changes effected by the Buyid
princes, when these built their palaces in East
Baghdad

^ Ibn Serapion, 22, 23 ; Ya'kubi, 252, 253 ; Khatib, folios 88 b, 113 b;
Yakut, ii. 783; iii. 207, 317; iv. 187; Marasid, i. 430; Ibn-al-Athir,
X. 441.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MUKHARRIM QUARTER

The Khurisin Road and its Markets. The Bdb-at-Tdk Gate.
The Miisa Canal and the Mukharrim. The Z^hir Garden, the Great
Road, and the Street of 'Amr the Greek. The Palace of Mu ta?im.
The Long Street, the Palace of Ibn-al-Furit, and the Street of the
Vine. The Suk-al-‘Atsh or Thirst Market. The Market of Harashi
and his Palace. The Ansir Bridge, the Palace of Ibn-al-Khasib, and
the three Tanks. The Great Pitched Gate. The Mukharrim Gate
and Road : the Canal to the Firdiis Palace. The Haymarket. Palace
of Princess Bdniijah. The Horse Market and its Gate. The Bl.b
'Ammdr and the Palace of 'Umirah. The two lower Canals at the
Triple Divide. The Mu'alU Canal. The Bib Abraz and the Gate of
the Tuesday Market. The Canal of the Palaces. The Bib ‘Ammah.
The Mushjir Fief.

The southern limit of the Shammisiyah Quarter
was the great Khur4sS.n Road, which ran from the
end of the Main Bridge of Boats eastward to
the KhurdsSn Gate, whence the highroad went to
Nahrawin Town, on the canal of that name. In
describing the three northern quarters at the close
of the third century (the ninth a.d.), Ya'khbi men-'
tions this Khurisdn Road as the chief market of
Eastern Baghdad, where were gathered together all
kinds of goods and stuffs and manufactured articles,
with by- streets to the right hand and to the
left occupied by warehouses of the merchants and

2 i 8 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

the dwellings of the tradesmen. , The number of
shops in this great market must have been con-
siderable, for, as the result of a fire which occurred
here in the year 292 (a.d. 905), more than three
hundred shops near the bridge are reported to have
been burnt.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the Main
Bridge, where the road began, stood the Market of
the Goldsmiths (Sfik-as-S^hah), and here was the
great arched gate, called the Bib-at-T 4 k, which
gave its name collectively to the three northern
quarters of Eastern Baghdad, for these are often
referred to as the B 4 b-at-Tik (the Quarter of the
Gate of the Archway). This arch had originally
formed part of the Palace of Asm^, daughter of the
Caliph Mansfir, which occupied one side of the road-
way, while opposite to it stood the Palace of Prince
‘Ubayd-Allah’^, son of Mahdi, the road between the
two being known as the Bayn-al-E^asrayn (the Road
between the Palaces). The ground here had
originally been granted in fief by Mahdi to his Chief
of Police, Khuzaymah ibn KhSzim, whose palace,
called the D 4 r Khuzaymah, stood at the corner
where the road of the Shammdslyah branched off
to the northern gate. In the days of Hirfin-ar-
Rashid the BSb-at-X^k at the bridge head was often
used as a meeting-place of the poets, whose works
the Caliph delighted to have recited before him, and
hence this building had come to be known as the
Majlis-ash-Shu'ari, or the Assembly Hall of the Poets.

The name Mukharrim had been given to the
parcel of land here on the Tigris bank long before
Baghdad was founded, for during the first century

Khatib, folio 88 a. Yakut, iii. 489? calls him 'Abd- Allah in error.

XVI.] The Mukharrim Quarter 219

of the Hijrah, when the Moslems had recently
conquered Mesopotamia, an Arab of that name
settled here on a fief granted to him by the Caliph
'Omar. It will be remembered that the Mukharrim
Quarter was bounded on the east' and south by the
city wall of the time of Musta'in, which curved
round in a quadrant from the Khurisdn Gate to
the Gate of the Tuesday Market, immediately above
the Firdhs Palace on the river. The Tigris formed
the western boundary of the quarter, adid more or
less parallel with the river bank ran the Great Road
(Ash-Shdri'-al-A'zam), leading from the Gate of the
Tuesday Market up to the Main Bridge, where,
crossing the line of the Khurisin Road, it communi-'
cated with the ShammcLslyah Road and the Road
of the Maydin in Rusifah. Through these roads
in Rusifah, therefore, the Great Road was the chief
thoroughfare from north to south on the eastern
side of the river, connecting the Shammislyah Gate
and the Upper Bridge with the Lower Bridge and
the Gate of the Tuesday Market. The name of the
Great Road, however, was only applied to that part
of the thoroughfare which traversed the Mukharrim
Quarter, beginning where the Garden of Zihir lay
along the bank of the Tigris, just below the head
of the Main Bridge, and in its upper part the
Great Road probably marked the limit of this
garden on the east side, the mouth of the Mhsi
Canal being at the lower boundary. The position
of the Garden of Z^hir is unfortunately not specifi-
cally described, nor is it stated who Zihir, the original
owner of the garden, had been. The accounts, how-
ever, clearly indicate that the Zdhir Garden lay on
the bank of the Tigris, at the mouth of the Mhs 4

220

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Canal, which flowed through and irrigated the
garden after having crossed the Great Road which
went down the river side to the Gate of the Tuesday
Market; and it seer’s therefore probable that the
garden must have been situated almost immediately
below the Main Bridge of Boats. The Zihir Garden
is also mentioned in connexion with the Wazir of
the Caliph Muktadir, Ibn Muklah, who built himself
a palace here — spending, it is said, 200,000 dinars
(about 1 00,000) — and he annexed some twenty
Jartbs (or seven acres) of the garden, which were
included in the precincts of his new palace, the com-
pletion of which fell in the year 320 (a.d. 93 2) b

As already described in chapter xiii, the Mtisci
Canal traversed the Mukharrim Quarter from south-
east to north-west. It entered the quarter by the
Gate of the Horse Market, and after sending off six
minor branch canals (which all started from its left
bank, flowing towards the river), the parent stream,
as mentioned in the last paragraph, ultimately flowed
out into the Tigris below the Zihir Garden. Ibn
Serapion states that before reaching the garden,
and after crossing the Great Road, the canal
traversed the Street of 'Amr-ar-Rhmi (the Greek
‘Amr), which it appears likely was a crossroad to
the north of the garden. Who this ‘Amr was is
not given, but possibly he is the individual men-
tioned by Balddhuri as having been the freedman
of the Caliph Hidi, who had named him governor
of Kazwln in northern Persia

* Ibn Serapion, 22; 'Arib, 64, 154, 185. This Zihir is not to be
confounded with the Caliph ZShir.

® Ya'kubi, 251, 253 ; Istakhri, 83; Ibn Serapion, 2i, 22; 'Arib, 64,
158; Baladhuri, 295, 323; Mas'udi, viii. 236; Yakut, iii. 232; iv. 441.

XVI,] The Mukhayrtm Quarter 221

In the northern part of the Mukharrim Quarter,
on the bank of the Mhs^i Canal, and probably near
the Khurfisdn Gate, stood the Palace of the Caliph
Mu'ta§im, along the southern side of which passed
the Long Street (Darb-at-Tawll), This palace had
been inhabited by Mu'tasim between the years 218
and 221 (a.d. 833 to 836), that is to say before he
abandoned Baghdad for S^marr^ ; and it must have
fallen to ruin not long after this latter date, for the
Mu'tasim Palace is apparently not mentioned by
any authority later than the time of Ibn Serapion,
who wrote at the beginning of the fourth century
(the tenth a.d.). Just before reaching the Long
Street and the Mii'ta§im Palace a canal branched
from the Nahr Mhs4, which, after a short course,
reached the garden of the palace built by the Wazlr
Ibn-al-Furdt, where its waters became lost in irri-
gation channels. ‘All Ibn-al-Furat was a statesman
well known during the reign of Muktadir, whom he
served as Wazlr three several times, namely between
the years 296 and 312 (a.d. 909 to 924); and along
this canal leading to his palace passed the road
called the Shiri' Karm-al-*Arsh (or Karm-al-Mu'ar-
rash, as one MS. gives it), which may be translated
the Street of the Vine Trellis or of the Climbing
Vine.

In this neighbourhood lay the Thirst Market
(Shk-al-'Atsh), through which the branch canal, now
under discussion, took its way shortly after bifur-
cating from the Mhsi Canal ; and this was one of
the chief centres of the Mukharrim Quarter. The
market had been built during the reign of Mahd!
by Sa'id-al-Harashl, whose quadrangle and palace,
with the market street called after him, will be

222

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

mentioned presently. The Sdk-al-'Atsh seems to
have fallen early to ruin, for when Y^kht wrote in
the beginning of the seventh century (the thirteenth
A.D.), the place where it had originally stood was
completely unknown. The original intention of the
Caliph Mahdi had been to have called it the Market
of Satiety (Sdk-ar-Riyy), presumably because it was
assumed that ‘satiety’ for all bodily wants could
here be easily attained. It was to have been the
rival of the markets of Karkh on the western side,
and with a view of taking away trade from these,
many merchants were deported from West Baghdad
and settled here by the Caliph’s orders. The name
of Thirst Market, however, was given to it by the
people in derision, and this became its permanent
appellation. Adjacent to it stood the smaller market
called Suwaykah-al-Idarashl, already referred to, with
the quadrangle (Murabba*ah) in which , stood the
palace called the Ddr Sa'id, this Sa‘id-al-Idarashi *
having been the general whom the Caliph Mahdi
dispatched against Al-Mukanna‘, the celebrated
Veiled Prophet of KhurAs&n, whose overthrow, much
to the relief of his master, Sa*id brought about.

To the south of the Palace of Mu'ta§im, and
higher up its main stream, the Mdsi Canal was
crossed by a bridge called the Kantarah-al-Ansdr,
the name of Ansir or ‘ Helpers ’ having been given
to those people in Medina who had aided the Prophet
Muhammad at the time of his flight out of Mecca,
and whose descendants in after times still bore this
honourable surname. Near this bridge stood the

^ Yalmbi, 304 j 'Arib, 28, 43. IfarctsU is the true reading, not
Khursht (which would mean the KhuiAsdnian), as given in Yakut,
iii. 194 ; iv. 485.

XVI.] The Mukharrim Quarter 223

Palace of Ahmad-al-Khasibi, commonly called Ibn-
al-Khasib, Wazlr in the year 314 (a,d. 926) of the
Caliph Muktadir^; the name of the road which
crossed by the Ansir Bridge is not given, but it was
probably the Road of Sa'd (which will be noticed
presently), leading into the Long Street near the
Mu'tasim Palace.

Immediately beyond the bridge three minor canals
branched from the Mhsi Canal, conducting its waters
to a like number of tanks, called respectively the
Idawd DS.hd, the IJawd HayMnah, and the Idawd-
al-AnsSr, this last after the Helpers, from whom the
bridge took its name. The tank of Dihd lay
nearest to the Thirst Market, already described,
and it was either called after Dihd (the Arabic
form of David), the son of the Caliph Mahdl, or
after one of his freedmen who was the namesake
of the prince. The midmost of the tanks was called
after HayMnah (Helena), either the favourite concu-
bine of H^Lrhn-ar-Rashld, or, according to another
version, a slave of the same name who had held the
post of I^ahraminah or Stewardess of the Hartm
in the reign of Manshr. She is probably identical
with the woman already mentioned (p. 146), after
whom a suburb and fief in Western Baghdad, near
the Mukawwal Gate, had been named*.

^ He was the son of ‘Ubayd-Allah, but in accordance with a common
custom reverted to the name of his grandfather, Ahmad ibn-al-Khasib,
who had been Waztr of the Caliph Muntasir, in 247 (a.B. 861), at
Simarri. In my notes to Ibn Serapion, p. 282, this palace of Ibn-al-
Khastb has been attributed, in error, to the grandfather, who having
lived at StoarrS. is unlikely to have befen the builder of it.-

* *Arib, 127; Ibn Serapion, 22; Ya'kubi, 252, 253, 255; Khatib,
folio 106 b; Yakut, ii. 362; iii. 194; iv. 485. From the description
of the courses of the canals given by Ibn Serapion, it is evident that
the Thirst Market lay to the south of the Khurisdn highroad, hence

224 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

South again of the Ansdr Bridge, but further up-
stream, the main branch canal of the Mukharrim
Quarter bifurcated from the Nahr leaving it

near the gateway known as the Bib Mukayyar-al-
Kabir (the Great Pitched Gate), so called from the
bitumen or mineral pitch (in Arabic Ktr') with which
it was overlaid. This method of preserving the sun-
dried bricks from the effects of damp and rain was
of common usage in Baghdad. The bitumen came
chiefly from a well lying between Kflfah and Basrah,
where it rose to the surface of the ground mixed
with water. Though originally soft like clay, it soon
hardened by exposure, and when plastered on a wall
and polished it came to resemble a slab of marble
in appearance. It was especially used for lining the
hot rooms in the baths, where both floors and walls
could thus be rendered watertight ; and Y 4 kflt says
there was a large quarter of Baghdad in his day
known as Darb-al-Kayyir (the Street of the Pitch-
workers), probably identical with the Shiri‘-al-I^ay-
yirin (see p. 78) in West Baghdad, mentioned by
Ibn Serapion, which took its name from those who
were of this trade.

The Great Road of the Mukharrim Quarter, which
led up from the Lower Bridge of Boats and the
Tuesday Market, by which, according to Ya'kflbl,
‘one came over from Western Baghdad,’ after passing

Yakut (who confesses that no one could, in his day, tell where this
market had stood), is certainly wrong in placing it between the Sham-
mdstyah and Ruskfah, and in the immediate neighbourhood of the
great Dyke of Muizz-ad-Dawlah, which will be described in the
following chapter. This last, indeed, must have been separated from
the Thirst Market by the whole extent of the Shammislyah Quarter.
In my paper on Ibn. Serapion, p, 283, I have by mistake mistranslated
Siik-al-'Atsh as the ‘Famine’ Market —-^atsh being, of course, ‘thirst,’
not ‘ hunger,’

XVI.]

The Mukharrim Quarter

225

first along the river bank appears to have bifurcated
when it came to the gate known as the B4b-al-
Mukharrim, one branch road turning inland towards
the Great Pitched Gate. The branch canal of the
Mukharrim Quarter ran down this road to the
Mukharrim ’ Gate, where the canal was crossed by
an arched bridge, called the Kantarah-al-'Abbds,
after a brother of the Caliph MansClr ; and in later
times the canal here was known as the Ditch of
Al-‘Abbis. A branch, starting from the Mukharrim
Gate, flowed off south through a channel dug by
the Caliph Mu'tadid to irrigate the gardens of the
Firdfis Palace beyond the town wall ; but the main
course of the canal, after passing the Mukharrim
Gate, turned up north along the highroad of the
Mukharrim Quarter (the Great Road), where its
waters soon became lost in irrigation channels.

Between the Mukharrim Gate and the Great
Pitched Gate, the thoroughfare which, as said, bifur-
cated from the Great Road, was bordered by the
booths of the Hay Market (Hawinit-al-*Alldfin), and
at the Great Pitched Gate there turned off the road
known as the Shiri' Sa'd-al-Wasif, which led towards
the Ansir Bridge. This road was called after a

^ The position of the Bib Mukharrim is difficult precisely to
determine. It stood on the canal (Ibn Serapion, p, 22), and lay
therefore within the Mukharrim Quarter, and was not a gate in the
line of the wall built by Musta'in. Further, from the account of the
reception of the Greek ambassadors by Muktadir, we learn that the
Mukharrim Gate was on the line of the thoroughfare going from
the Shammisiyah Gate down the Tigris to the gate of the palace
called the Bib-al-*Ammah (‘Arib, 64 ; Khatib, folio 93 b). It seems
probable, therefore, that the Bib Mukharrim stood somewhat to the
north of where the Gate of the Sultan (the modem Bib-al-Mu^a?2am)
was built at a subsequent date, when the later wall round the quarter
of the palaces, which still encloses the eastern city of Baghdad, was
erected by the Caliph Mustazhir.

BAGHDAD

0

226 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

certain Sa*d ‘the Slave/ possibly the same as Sa‘d-al-
Khadim (the Eunuch), who having been originally
of the household of Itikh the Turk, became the
favourite attendant of the Caliph Mutawakkil. On
this Street of Sa'd stood the Palace of Ibn-al-Khaslb,
Wazir of the Caliph Mu^tadir, already mentioned ;
and apparently near this' was the Market (Suwaykah)
which took its name from Idajj^j-al-Wastf, who had
been a freedman of the Caliph Mahdi.

Further up the Mtisi Canal, and probably due
east of the Great Pitched Gate, was the bifurcation
of the uppermost of the six canals which branched
from the Nahr MQsi, and this had its point of origin
near the gate called the Bib 'Ammir. It flowed
direct to the Palace of Biniijah, whose name is also
written Binflkah (meaning Little Binfl or ‘Lady’ in
Turkish), a daughter of the Caliph Mahdi, who is
reported to have died young, she having been the
first of the Abbasids to be buried in the Khayzurin
cemetery outside the Abu ffanifah Suburb. This
princess was a great favourite with her father, whom
she used always to accompany when he left the
capital, and the good people of Basrah were on
one occasion much scandalized by seeing her ride
publicly beside the Caliph Mahdi as he entered
their city, she being on this occasion dressed as
a page (Ghulim) in a black tunic and girt with a
sword, wearing a man’s turban on her head. She
is described as having had brown hair and a pleasing
figure, its plumpness showing out under her boy’s
dress ; and when she died the Caliph Mahdi mourned
for her publicly, sitting to receive the condolence
of his nobles as though he had lost one of his sons.
Whether her palace lay to the right (north) or to

XVI.] The Mukharrim Quarter 227

the left (south) of the Mhsd Canal is not stated,
but this branch canal which carried water to its
grounds ended here, the stream running dry in the
irrigation channels.

The uppermost reach of the Mhsi Canal, above
the branch to the BAnhjah Palace, flowed through
the Horse Market called Shk-ad-Dawwdbb (more
exactly the Market for the sale of Riding Animals
and Beasts of Burden), which was closed by the
Gate of the Horse Market at its upper end, and
below by the Bib 'Ammir. After whom the Gate
of ‘Ammir was named is not stated, indeed the
only authorities who speak of it are, apparently,
Ibn Serapion and 'Arib ; but it is possible that this
'Ammir may have been a connexion of an indi-
vidual named 'Umirah, whose palace called the Dir
'Umirah is mentioned by Yikht, quoting from
Khatib, as having stood in the Mukharrim Quarter,
this ‘Umirah being the son of Abu-l-Khasib, cham-
berlain of the Caliph Manshr. In the description
left us by Ibn Serapion, the Gate of the Horse
Market is the first building mentioned as standing
on the Mhsi Canal, and this probably lay a short
distance to the north of the south-eastern limit of
the three northern quarters of East Baghdad. Later
authorities state that the Mhsi Canal entered the
town very soon after passing out from the grounds
of the Palace of the Pleiades, and this Gate of the
Horse Market doubtless was in the wall which
Musta'ln had caused to be built round these quarters
at the time of the siege in 251 (a.d. 865) \

^ Ibn Serapion, si, 22; 'Arib, 17; Ya'kubi, 254, Ibn Jubayr, 130;
Ibn Batutah, ii. 106 ; Khatib, folios 89 b, 90 b, 106 a, 116 a ; Yakut, ii.
521 ; iii. 200 j iv. 1 12; Marasid, iii. 252; Ibn-al-Athir, vii. 65; Ibn

228 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

At the Triple Divide, just outside the Palace of
the Pleiades, the two other canals from the Nahr
Mflsi branched to the left, southwards, and the
upper of the two was called the Mu'alli Canal.
This was so named from Mu'alli, a freedman of
the Caliph Mahdl, afterwards general-in-chief of the
forces in the reign of Hirhn-ar- Rashid, who is cele-
brated for having held more governments than any
of his contemporaries, he having been governor,
in turn, of the city of Basrah and of the provinces
of Ahwiz, Firs, Yamimah, and Balbrayn. The
Mu'alli Canal entered the Mukharrim Quarter by
the g^te called the Bib Abraz, which at the begin-
ning of the fourth century (the tenth a.d.) marked
the south-eastern angle of the three northern quarters
of East Baghdad. After entering the city the canal
passed along, betw^n the houses, until it came to
the Gate of the Tuesday Market (Bib Sik-ath-
Thalithah), which at this period marked the southern
limit of East Baghdad ; and here, leaving the city,
the Mu'alli Canal entered the Firdis Palace — the
uppermost of the three palaces of the Caliphs —
and after irrigating its gardens, flowed out into the
Tigris close below the palace buildings.

Below the Palace of the Firdtls stood the I^asani
Palace (which with others will be more particularly
described in a later chapter), and directly to the
Idasani Palace flowed the lowest of the three
canals from the Divide on the Nahr Misi. After
watering the gardens of the Tij Palace, which lay

Kutaybah, 193; Tabari, iii. 543. In the passage of Ibn al-Athir (vi.
58), corresponding with this last reference to Tabari, the name of the
Princess JBdnMah is, in error, given as YdMtaky and this mistake
has been copied by Kremer, ii. 62.

XVI.] The Miikharrim Quarter 229

-immediately below the I^asani on the river bank,
this third canal finally discharged its waters into the
Tigfris- below the palace gardens. These grounds had
been entered by the third canal near the main gate-
way of the palace garden wall, called the B4b-al-
'Ammah (the Public Gate), which will be more fully
noticed at a later page, but before reaching the
gateway, and at some little distance from the Divide,
I bn Serapion writes that the canal passed the Gate
of the Fief of Mushjlr (Bib Kati'ah Mushjir) ^
This fief must have occupied much of , the ground
covered by the Rayhiniyin Market of later Baghdad,
for the place is not mentioned by subsequent writers,
but in the beginning of the fourth century (the tenth
A.D.) it still bore the name of its original owner.
Mushjlr or Mushkir-al-Wasif (the Slave) had been
a favourite Turk attendant of the Caliph Mu'tadid,
by whom he was promoted to the command of the
army; Mu'tadid thus requiting a special service
rendered to him, for when Mushkir had been
Steward of the Palace to the preceding Caliph
Mu'tamid, he had brought about the prompt
accession of the nephew (Mu'tadid) by serving the
uncle (Mu'tamid) with a savoury dish of artfully
poisoned meat.

Such, at the beginning of the fourth century (the
tenth A.D.), before the advent of the Buyids, were

* Yakut, iv. 845. In Ibn Serapion (pp. 22 and 279) the name is
printed in error MUshajin. Khatib, folio 106 b, has the right spelling
with a final r, and compare Tabari, iii. 21 21, with Mas'udi, viii. no.
The name is also written MUshkir, and evidently represents the
Persian Mflshgtr (with a hard g), meaning ‘ mouse-catcher,’ which is
the name of a species of crow, also called M^sh-kh-wdr, or ‘ mouse-
eater.’ The Turk slaves fi'equently had names (or nicknames) derived
from birds, e.g. Tughril, ‘ Falcon,’ l^ldfin, ‘Duck.’

230 Baghdad during the Caliphate

the three northern quarters of East Baghdad, namely
Rusdfah, Shammdsiyah, and Mukharrim, which were
enclosed by the semicircle of the wall starting from
the Tigris at the Shammistyah Gate and coming
down to the river again at the gate of the Tuesday
Market, above the palaces of the Caliph.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BUYID PALACES

The Palace of Miinis and the Buyid Palaces. The Dyke of
Muizz-ad-Dawlah and the ZUhir Garden. The Dir-al-Mamlakat of
Mu*iz2-ad-Dawlah. The great Dyke and the Ktlrij Canal, The
Palaces of *Adud-ad-Dawlah. His Garden and the New Canal.
Elephants used in Baghdad. The Dir-as-Saltanah of the Saljiiks.
Tughril Beg and his marriage ceremony. Demolition of this Palace
by the Caliph Ndsir. The Mosque of the Sultan.

In the early years of the fourth century (the tenth
A.D.) the plain outside the Shammislyah Gate (as
mentioned in a previous chapter) was occupied by
the Palace of Mhnis the Chamberlain, who, after
governing the Caliphate during most , of the reign
of Mulktadir, finally deposed that Caliph in 320
(a.d. 932), and putting him to death in this Palace
of the Shammislyah, set up his brother ^Cihir in
his stead \ The Chamberlain Mfinis, however, was
himself disgraced and beheaded by Kdhir in the
following year, a period of general disorder followed,
filling up the reigns of J^ihir Ridl and Muttaki,
which was finally brought to a close under the
Caliph Mustakfl, when in the year 334 (a.d. 946)
Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah the Buyid, at the head of his
Daylamite troops, became master of Baghdad.

^ Ibn-al-Athir, viii. 138, 148, 337,

232 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

His troops halted at the Shammisiyah, and the
Buyid prince at first took up his quarters in the
Palace of Munis, which, however, shortly after this
must have been demolished to make way for the
gpreat palaces of the Buyids. These were erected
in the region which is described as bounded by the
Z§.hir Garden on the lower side, and on the north
by the dyke on the ShammSslyah plain, built under
the directions of Mu‘izz-ad-Dawlah to prevent the
overflow of the canals from the KhMis, which had
so often laid this quarter of Baghdad under water.
With their grounds the Buyid Palaces must have
covered a very considerable area. The southern
limit was along the line of the Khur^sin road, while
to the right and left the Palaces extended over the
space between the Shammdsiyah and the Baraddn
roads. The Mosque of Rus4fah, which was still
standing, and the quarter round the shrine of Abu
Hanifah, came between the palaces and the river
bank, while to the east lay the Christian Quarter
of the Greek House, which from the account in the
Fihrisi ^ven in a previous chapter) of the Nesto-
rian monk who had been to China, evidently was
the centre of a populous region of Baghdad as late
as the last quarter of the fourth century (the tenth
A.D.). In their upper part the Buyid Palaces are
described as lying along the Tigris bank, ‘ opposite
to the Fardah’ or Upper Harbour, at the mouth
of the Trench of the western bank above

the Harbiyah Quarter; while the northern limit of
the grounds and g^dens was formed by the great
Dyke of Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah, which starting from the
Tigris bank crossed. the Shammeistyah Plain.

No trace of these palaces now remains, but

xvii.] The Buyid Palaces 233

Khatib, who wrote a century after the Buyid epoch,
and who has left a full description of their palaces,
which in his day were already in a state of ruin,
always speaks of them as situated above or in the
upper part of the Mukharrim Quarter, from which
it perhaps follows that some of the palaces lay
to the south of the line of the Khurdsan road.
In his description the Buyid Palaces are generally
referred to as the Dir-al-Mamlakat (the Palace of
the Government), as against the Dasani Palace or
the Ddr-al-Khilifat (the Palace of the Caliphate),
where the Caliph reigned, but no longer governed.
In this Ddr-al-Mamlakat the various Buyid princes,
and after their day the Saljdk Sultans, when resident
in Baghdad, held their court.

The first Buyid palace to be built was that of
Mu‘izz-ad-Dawlah, and it is said to have cost thir-
teen million dirhams, about ;^500,000 sterling’.
The great Dyke, already mentioned (called Al-
Musann^t-al-Mu'izziyah), the remains of which might
still be seen about the year 700 (a.d. 1300), when
the author of the Mardsid wrote, was carried across
the low-lying plain of the Shamm&siyah, with a view
of preventing the waters of the stream, known in
later times as the Kfirij, from inundating the grounds
of the new palaces. Inundations, however, none the
less continued to happen, and in the year 466 (a. d.
1074) the dyke was ruptured by a flood in the
I^firij, the waters of the Tigris having also risen
under stress of the desert wind which kept them

* In Yakut, iii. 318, the date A.H. 305 is given for the completion of
his palace by Mu‘izz ; but this must be a mistake, since he only entered
Baghdad in 334, It should perhaps be 345 (a.D. 956). Compare also
Yakut, iii. 194 ; and Marasid, ii. 124.

234 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

from flowing off, and immense damage resulted in
both the eastern and the western quarters of the
city. A like inundation is again mentioned by Ibn-
al-Athir as occurring in the year 554 (a.d. 1159).
The stream of the ^Ihrij, which did all this damage,
would appear to have been identical with, or at
least to have followed the line formerly taken by
the canal called the Nahr Fadl, described by Ibn
Serapion in the fourth century (the tenth a.d.).
Writing in the seventh century (the thirteenth a.d.)
YUktit mentions further damage which had recently
been caused by the overflow of the I^hrij, which he
writes was a canal that had originally been dug by
one of the Chosroes of ancient Persia, being the
work of the same king who had excavated the I^itul
Canal or Nahrawdn, from which the !1^0rij was
derived ; and this attribution may have some foun-
dation in fact since the name l^hrij (or l^hraj) is
merely the Arabicized form of the Old Persian word
K'&rah, meaning a canal

Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah died in 356 (a.d. 967), being
succeeded by his son Tzz-ad-Dawlah, who, after he
had misgoverned Baghdad during eleven years, was
finally deposed by his cousin ‘A^ud-ad-Dawlah, the
Buyid ruler of Firs, and in the year 367 (a.d. 978)
this prince entering Baghdad became master of
the Caliph and his empire. ‘Adud-ad-Dawlah was,
famous for his buildings, among which was the great
Hospital in Western Baghdad, which has been
already described, and in Eastern Baghdad he
enlarged and almost entirely rebuilt the Palace of

^ See Ibn Serapion, 267 ; Ibn-al-Athir, x. 62 ; xi. 164 ; Yakut, iv,
198; De Goeje, Histoire des Carmathes (second edition, 1886), p. 13,
note 3.

The Buyid Palaces

235

xvn.]

Mu‘izz-ad-DawIah. This building is named Saray-
as-Sultdn (the Palace of the Sultan) by the Persian
author of the Guztdah, who says it was famous as
the finest edifice of its age ; while of the older palace
of Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah nothing was allowed to remain
standing but the part called the Bayt-as-Sittini
(the Hall of the Sixty). The land adjacent thereto
had originally been granted in fief to Sabuktagin,
Chamberlain of Mu‘izz-ad-Dawlah, but this was now
taken up by the buildings of the new palace, which
consisted of a great court surrounded by porticoes
with cupolas built over them, and the western gates
of the palace opened on the Tigris bank, opposite the
Fardah or Upper Harbour of the yarbiyah Quarter.

In his new palace ‘Adud-ad-Dawlah established
the hall for the public audience, while the hall of
the old Palace of Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah was used as the
place of assembly for the Wazlrs. The domed
porticoes adjacent were divided off to serve as
Diwdns or offices for the Secretaries of State, while
in the Great Court the Daylamites of his bodyguard
had their quarters during the summer time. Much
is said of the garden which 'Adud-ad-Dawlah created
beside his palace, and it is reported to have cost
a fabulous sum of money. This covered tlie ground
originally occupied by the Mayddn or square for polo
and horse-racing which Sabuktagin the Chamber-
lain had made here, and 'Adud-ad-Dawlah had first
to spend a considerable sum of money in digging
up and carrying away the stones and sand of the
Maydin before he could lay down soil suitable for
growing trees and plants. The account given by
Khatlb in his history of Baghdad is, he states,
derived from one who had been a witness of the

236 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

costly changes effected by the Buyid prince; and
he describes how all along the Tigris bank, in front
of the new palace, the private houses were bought
up by order of 'Adud-ad-Dawlah, and their walls
having been demolished, the space thus obtained
after being filled in with soil was planted and added
to the new gardens.

The original Mayddn of Sabuktagln was thus
doubled in size, the whole site being protected from
the inundation of the river by a dyke, presumably
forming an extension of the one elsewhere ascribed
to Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah. These works alone cost 'Adud-
ad-Dawlah two million dirhams {;^8o,ooo), such
being the sum which the prince admitted to have
spent when conversing with the writer of the account
which Khattb has preserved. For the irrigation of
the new garden water-wheels on the Tigris bank
were at first set up, but these having proved insuf-
ficient, 'Adud-ad-Dawlah ordered his engineers to
make a channel for bringing water direct from the
streams on the north-east of Baghdad, and for this
it was found necessary to go as far up as the Khili.s
river for the head of the new canal Further, to
obtain a level bed a continuous embankment had to
be constructed, along the top of which the course of
the new canal was dug ; then great artificial mounds
had to be built up in two places where for some
distance the aqueduct was carried many ells above
the level of the surrounding plain, and on either
side of the long embankment gullies (called Khawr')
were dug for carrying off the waters in seasons of
inundation.

^ The Kh^is flowed into the Tigris some six leagues to the north of
Baghdad, near the town of Baradan : see Ibn Serapion, p. 273-

XVII.]

The Buyid Palaces

237

The account goes on to state that for stamping
down the soil of this great embankment, as also for
demolishing the walls of the houses whose sites
were to be used for his garden grounds, 'Adud-ad-
Dawlah employed elephants. These animals were
not unknown in Baghdad during the third and fourth
centuries (ninth and tenth A.D.), and the ones now
used were probably brought by the Buyids from
India. Mas'hdi, the contemporary historian, fre-
quently mentions elephants in the pages of his
chronicle; thus he narrates that in 297 (a.d. 910)
Layth, the Saffarid prince, was as a prisoner of war
paraded through the streets of Baghdad mounted
on an elephant : and the heretic Bdbak at Samarri
in 223 (a.d. 838) was similarly treated, on which
last occasion Mas'ddi states that an immense grey
elephant was used, this animal having been originally
sent as a present to the Caliph Mamhn by one of
the kings of India. The Caliph MansQr also is said
to have possessed many elephants, which he was
fond of employing in state ceremonies, and Mas'Cldt
takes occasion to remark that though a mule hated
the Bactrian camel exceedingly, he hated an elephant
even more, and would behave very disagreeably
when forced into the company of thc.se huge beasts,
of which behaviour the chronicler gives an amusing
instance ^

When the new canal dug by ‘Aclud-ad-l)awlah
reached the city limits, and its channel pas.sed
among the houses, the bed was laid in burnt bricks
or stone blocks set in concrete of lime ; and thus
at length a plentiful supply of water wa.s brotight
to irrigate the gardens of the new palace, the esti-
^ Mas'udi, iiL 19; viL 127.

240 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

almost completely to ruin, these were demolished by
the Caliph Nisir, who in the year 587 (a. d. 1191)
caused the remaining walls to be levelled with the
ground

A building which is often mentioned in the
chronicles during the last two centuries of the
Caliphate was the Jimi'-as-Sultin, the third of
the great mosques of Eastern Baghdad (the other
two being the Rusifah Mosque and the mosque
within the precincts of the Palace of the Caliph),
where the Friday prayers continued to be said,
until the extinction of the Caliphate. The mosque
of the Sultan was built by Mdlik Shih the Saljiik,
its foundations having been laid in the year 485
{a.d. 1092), and it is said originally to have formed
part of the Palace of the Sultanate, namely the
Buyid Palace which the Saljtiks had inherited. The
mosque is described as standing between the Garden
of Zahir, which was on the river bank, and the
SaljAk palace which Y&kftt in several places refers to,
incidentally, as lying to the northward ‘behind the
mosque.’ The traveller Ibn Jubayr mentions the
mosque in 580 (a.d. 1184), which was about a
century after its completion, describing it as standing
‘ outside the wall of the city,’ namely the new town
of East Baghdad, which had grown up round the
palaces of the Caliphs to the south of the old
quarter of the Mukharrim.

Ibn J ubayr adds that he did not know exactly by
whom the mosque had been built; it stood con-
tiguous to the Palace of the Sultan, the Shihin Shdh
(the Great Saljiik often bore this title of King of

' Khatib, folios 97 a to 98 b. Guzidah, under reign of 'Adud-ad-
Dawlah, in book iv, section 5 ; Ibn-al-Athir, x. 15, 103 ; Yakut, iv. 441.

xvnj The Buyid Palaces 241

Kings), who had been ruler of affairs under one of
the forefathers of the Caliph Ndsir, and the mosque,
he says, was built by this same Sultan in front of
his palace, lying distant about one mile from the
Rusifah Mosque. As late as the year 7 2 7 (a. d . 1 3 2 7),
when Ibn Battitah visited Baghdad, the Jimi'-as-
SultAn was still standing^, as likewise the Rusd.fah
Mosque and the tomb of Abu Idanlfah ; and these
apparently were the only three buildings of the
older Mukharrim and Rusafah Quarters that had
survived the Mongol conquest. Of them all only
the shrine of Abu Ijianlfah now remains, the one
solitary relic of the three northern quarters of East
Baghdad which marks the position of Ru§ifah.

^ Ibn Khallikan, No. 750, p. 7j Yakut, iii. 1 95 ; iv. 441 ; Ibn Jubayr,
230; Ibn Batutah, ii. iii.

BAGHBAD

R

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PALACES OF THE CALIPHS

The Palaces of Western and of Eastern Baghdad. The Palace of
Ja*far the Barmecide ; extended by Mamhn. Hasan ibn Sahl and his
daughter Burin. The Hasani Palace restored to Mu'tamid. The
Tij Palace begun : the Firdus Palace. The Palace of the Pleiades.
The Great Mosque of the Palace. The completion of the Tij. The
Shatibiyah Palace. The Dome of the Ass. The Wild Beast Park
and other Palaces. The reception of the Greek Envoys from Con-
stantine Porphyrogenitus. The Palace of the Tree. The Garden of
Kihir. The Peacock Palace. The Hall of the Wazirs. The burning
of the Tij Palace. Building of the second Tij. The Gardens of the
Rakkah.

The Palace of the Golden Gate, in the centre
of the Round City, and the Khuld Palace, on the
river bank at the western end of the Main Bridge,
have been described in chapter ii, and it was in
one or other of these that, when the Caliph Manshr
was resident in Baghdad, he held his court. His
son and successor Mahdi had occupied, during his
father’s lifetime, the Palace of Rugifah in the
northern quarter of East Baghdad, but after
succeeding to the Caliphate he went to live in
West Baghdad, which continued to be the seat of
government during his time, as also during the
reigns of his two sons the Caliphs Hddi and HArfln-
ar-Rashtd.

243

The Palaces of the Caliphs

The earliest of the gpreat southern palaces of
East Baghdad, where, during the last four centuries
of the Abbasid dynasty, the Caliphs held their
court, had originally been a pleasure house, built
by Ja'far the Barmecide, brother-in-law and boon
companion of Hdr6n-ar-Rashtd. It stood in what
was then the open country on the Tigris bank below
the Mukharrim. Quarter, at a considerable distance
therefore from Rusfifah and the populous northern
quarters of East Baghdad. This Palace of Ja'far
the Barmecide, which became the nucleus of the
great congeries of palaces that afterwards were
known as the Dir-al-Khildfat (the Abode of the
Caliphate), was at first called the Kasr Ja'fart,
but afterwards, having come to be inhabited in
turn by Mamhn and by the Wazir Hasan ibn
Sahl, it was more generally named the
Mamhnl or the Ha?r Hasani. In its grounds,
after the return of the Caliphate from Simarri,
the great mosque of the palace (Jimi'-al-Ra§r) was
erected, while adjacent to the Hasani, as will be
described later, were built two other palaces, namely
the FirdAs, upstream, and the Palace of the TAj,
downstream; all three buildings thus standing on
the Tigris bank, with great gardens stretching to
the back, enclosing many minor palaces within their
precincts.

YikAt gives us the history of these palaces, and
in' the first place relates how Ja'far the Barmecide,
being much given to wine-bibbing in the company
of poets and singers, was frequently reproved by
his father Yahyi — at that time Wazir of HirAn-ar-
Rashid — for the scandal that he was creating. Ja'far
professed inability to alter his ways, but in order

R 2

244 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

to shun the observation of strict Moslems who
abhorred wine and singing, he agreed to build
himself a palace apart, for the celebration of his
joyous assemblies, on the unoccupied lands to the
south of the Mukharrim Quarter. Ja'far was at
this time still the favourite boon companion of
Hirhn-ar-Rashid, who showed much interest in the
building, which was indeed so remarkable for its
magnificence, that when all was completed an
astute friend advised Ja'far to tell Hirfin that
this palace was in reality built as a present for
Mamfin, and thus to avoid the well-known jealousy
of the Caliph.

Mamun, the heir-apparent, from the time of his
birth had been put under the nominal guardian-
ship of Ja'far, and the Caliph graciously accepting
the gift for his son, the new palace, at first called
tlie Ja'fari, came afterwards to be known as the
Mamflni, though it remained exclusively in the
occupation of Ja'far until the fall of the Barmecides,
■After the tragic death of Ja'far, the young prince
Mamlin entered into full possession of the palace,
and it became one of his favourite places of re-
sidence : he enlarged the buildings, added a Mayddn
or square for horse racing and the Persian game of
polo (§uljin), which, according to Mas'Adl, the Caliph
Hdr<in-ar-Rash!d had been the first to play in
Baghdad, and began to lay out the Wild Beast
Park, which l^fterwards became one of its notable
features. Mamfln also built a gate opening on
the plain to the eastward, and another through
which was brought the branch canal from the Nahr
Mu alii, as is described by Ibn Serapion; further,
he laid out the quarter adjacent, called after him the

xvm.] The Palaces of the Caliphs 245

Mamtlniyah (which will be noticed more fully in a
subsequent chapter), where his- attendants and
followers built themselves houses ; all these altera-
tions in the Ja'fari Palace, according to Ydktit,
having been effected during the latter years of the
reign of Hirhn, and prior to MamAn being sent
to assume the governorship of Khuris^ln with the
eastern provinces of the empire.

The Ja'fari or Mamiini Palace appears to have
remained unoccupied for many years after the
departure of Mamhn for the east, and it will be
remembered how civil war broke out between Amin
and Mamfln shortly after the death of Hirhn-ar-
Rashid, ending in the siege of Baghdad, when Amin,
having evacuated the eastern side, retired first to
the Khuld Palace and later to the shelter of the
Round City, where he intrenched himself in the
Palace of the Golden Gate, The ruin of these
two palaces of Western Baghdad appears to have
been largely the result of this twelvemonth’s
siege; though the Khuld suffered less than the
other, and when some five years after the death
of Amin, the Caliph Mamhn finally returned to
Baghdad, he at first took up his residence on the
western side in the Palace of the Khuld, leaving
the Mamiini Palace in the possession of his Wazir
yasan, generally known as Ibn Sahl, who had
preceded him to Baghdad as viceroy of
From the time of his accession MamQn had been
entirely under the influence of the two softs of
Sahl — a Persian by birth — one of whom, Fa<Jl Ibn
Sahl, had remained in personal attendance on the
Caliph in Khurisdn, acting as his Wazir, while
the brother, Idasan, had been sent forward to re-

246 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

establish the authority of Mamtin in Mesopotamia
after the devastation of the civil war. Fadl lost his
life, in KhurSsin, by a palace intrigue, but yasan,
after the arrival of the Caliph in Baghdad, estab-
lished himself firmly in the position of sole Wazir
to Mamfin, and then sought to perpetuate his power
by marrying his daughter Burin to the Caliph.

The espousals of Mamhn and Bfirin, which were
celebrated at the domain of Fam-as-Sil]^^, some miles
down the Tigris below Baghdad, have passed to
a proverb for their splendour, and for the sums
spent by yasan Ibn Sahl to do honour to his
royal son-in-law. As a slight return for his enter-
tainment, the Caliph after his marriage presented
the Mamfini Palace as a free gift to yasan ; and
the minister for a time inhabited it, but with much
prudence finally made it over to his daughter Bfirin,
having in part rebuilt it and added to the grounds.
In this palace Bfirin lived her long life — surviving
the glories of the reign of Mamfin, and living to see
the Caliphate transferred from Baghdad to Simarrji
— and to her filial affection, doubtless quite as much
as to the restorations effected by her father, is due
the fact that the palace from this time onwards was
generally known under the name of the I^a§r-al-
yasan! (after the Wazir yasan Ibn Sahl), though
later writers still at times refer to it under the name
of the Mamfini, or the Ja'fari Palace.

In 218 (a,d. 833) Mamfin had been succeeded by
his brother Mu'tasim, the last of the three sons of
Hirfin-ar- Rashid who attained the Caliphate, and
he, according to one account, inhabited the Palace
of Mamfin (namely the yasani) for some time after
his accession. Later, however, he built himself the

xvm.] The Palaces of the Caliphs 247

palace (already described) in the Mukharrim Quarter,
to the south of the Khurds^Ln Gate, living there till
the year 221 (a.d. 836), when the excesses of the
Turk body-guard, with other events, brought about
the removal of the Caliphate to Simarri. This city, .
which he partly rebuilt, remained the seat of govern-
ment for more than half a century^, and during the
reig^ of eight Caliphs, though one of these, namely
Musta'in, fleeing from Simarri (as has been men-
tioned in a previous chapter), came down the river
to Baghdad, and there was besieged by the Turk
body-guard of his rival the Caliph Mu'tazz. ft will
be remembered that the headquarters of Musta'in
during this siege were in the Palace of Mahdl in
Rusifah, the chief attack of the besieging army
being directed against the Shammislyah Quarter,
and the ruin of the three northern quarters of
Eastern Baghdad may be dated chiefly from the
events of this unfortunate year 251 (a.d. 865). The
second siege of Baghdad ended with the death of
Musta'in, whereupon Mu'tazz, his cousin, was recog-
nized as sole Caliph, he and the next two puppet
Caliphs continuing to live on at Simarri under the
tyranny of the Turk body-guard.

During the Zanj rebellion, which broke out in
Lower Mesopotamia during the Caliphate of Mu'tamid
— the last of those who lived at S^marri — the Regent
Muwaffak, brother of the Caliph and the actual
ruler of the empire, leaving Mu'tamid to reside at
Simarrd, came down to Baghdad, and made the
older capital his headquarters during the many years
that were spent in fighting the rebels. The long
residence in Baghdad of the actual ruler of the
empire doubtless paved the way for the return of

248 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

the Caliphs to their original metropolis. This came
about shortly after the death of Muwaffak, when
Mu'tamid, six months before his own death, finally
abandoned S 4 marri to take up his permanent abode
in Baghdad, which, indeed, he had temporarily visited
on more than one occasion. On the death of
Mu'tamid in 279 (a.d. 892) his body was taken back
to Sdmarri for burial among the tombs of his im-
mediate predecessors, but his nephew Mu'tadid (the
son of Muwaffak), who succeeded as Caliph, remained
iit Baghdad, which during the next four centuries,
and until the fall of the Caliphate, became once
more the residence of the Abbasids.

It is related by Yiktit that when Mu'tamid re-
turned to take up his residence in Baghdad, he
found Bhrin the widow of Mam6n still alive, and
in occupation of the Idasani Palace, where she had
A continued to live undisturbed after the death of her
husband and of her father Idasan Ibn Sahl.
Mu'tamid, who required a palace to live in, re-
quested Burin to remove elsewhere, promising her
another palace in exchange, and the request of the
Caliph was naturally equivalent to a command.
Bhrin pleaded for and obtained a short delay under
pretext of arranging her affairs, and forthwith set
about putting the palace and its furniture into
thorough repair, so that when she finally removed
to another house, the bJasant Palace was made over
to Mu'tamid in perfect order — Yikit describing
how its halls were spread with gold-woven carpets
and reed matting, its doors hung with needful
curtains, and its storerooms filled with all requisite
vessels for the service of the Caliph, while in atten-
dance were numerous slave girls and eunuchs.

xvni.] The Palaces of the Caliphs 249

Mu'tamid, we are told, expressed a due regard for
what the widow of his great uncle had done for him,
and proceeded to take up his abode in the I^asanl
Palace, where he died shortly after, as has been
said in the last chapter, poisoned by Mushklr his
steward, who saw his advantage in the reign of
a new Caliph.

Ycikiit has taken this anecdote about Burin from
the history of Baghdad by Khatib (as usual, without
acknowledgement), but with an important difference,
for Khattb gives it as the Caliph Mu'tadid (nephew
of Mu'tamid) who received back the palace from
Birin (he reigned from A.11. 279 to 289). Khatib
thereupon adds that he perforce doubts the authen-
ticity of this anecdote, which he had copied from
an earlier author, because Birin herself died some
years before Mu'tadid came to the throne. Now
Birin, who lived to be over eighty, died at Baghdad
in 2 7 1 (a. d. 884), as is mentioned in another passage
by Khatib and confirmed on good authority, that is
to say, some eight years before the accession of
Mu'tadid ; but if the (unacknowledged) alteration
made by Yikit be accepted — namely if we read
Mu'tamid for Mu'tadid, and the two names only
differ by a single letter — there will be no antecedent
improbability in the story reported by Khatib. In
the year 270, for instance, the chronicles state that
Mu'tamid was on a temporary visit to Baghdad
(before he finally settled there in 279), and he might
very well on this occasion have received back the
yasani Palace from BfirAn, with all the circumstances
related in the anecdote k

* Yakut, i. 806 to 809 ; Mas'udi, vii. 65 ; vii'". 296 ; Ya'kubi, 255 ;
Khatib, folio 92 ; Ibn Khallikan, No. 119, p. 16 ; Abu-l-Mahasin, ii. 72.

250 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

With the accession of Mu'tadid and the permanent
establishment of the Caliphate in East Baghdad,
a new era of palace-building was inaugurated, for
this Caliph not only enlarged the l:lasani and laid
the foundations of the Tfij, but built for himself two
other palaces, namely the Firdhs and the Thura)^i.
The y asant Palace was added to by buildings erected
on the Mayddn (or Square), which Mamhn had left,
and the whole was surrounded by a wall, after a new
Mayddn had been laid out in the lands to the east-
ward, where private houses had been pulled down
to provide the necessary space. Adjacent to the
yasan!, but higher upstream, Mu'tadid built the
I^a§r-al-Firdus (the Palace of Paradise), at the place
where the waters of the Mu'all4 Canal flowed out
into the Tigris; and in the gardens of this palace
was a lake (as has already been mentioned in
chapter xvi) fed by a channel coming from an off-
shoot of the M<is4 Canad, at the bifurcation near the
Mukharrim Gate. The Firdhs Palace had a gate
called the B4b-al-Firdhs, and apparently at one period
the name of the Firdtls was commonly used to denote
the Palaces of the Caliph in general, for in Arabic
the word FirdHs either stands for the Paradise of
Heaven (and as such applied to a palace) or may be
taken to signify a wild beast park (in Greek itapi-
&£<rof), such as was often made, following the ancient
Persian custom, in the purlieus of the royal abode.

The Palace of the Pleiades (I^asr-ath-Thura 5 ^cl),
as has been already mentioned in chapter xiii, lay
on the Mhs4 Canal two miles distant from "the
Hasanl Palace, and its site must therefore have
been outside the later city wall, w'hich was built
round the southern quarters of East Baghdad some

251

^vni.] The Palaces of the Caliphs

two centuries later than the time of Mu'tadid. The
Pleiades were, of course, beyond the precincts of the
palace gardens on the Tigris bank, and the Caliph
Mu'tadid, for his convenience, had this distant palace
connected with the fjasani by an underground
passage, two Arab miles in length, along which his
women and their attendants could pass from the
IJasani to the Thurayyi without appearing in public.
According to Mas'hdi, a contemporary authority,-
the Palace of the Pleiades cost Mu'tadid the im-
mense sum of 400,000 dinirs (equivalent to about
^200,000), and its grounds are said to have originally
covered an area three leagues in extent. The
passage-way two miles in length, above mentioned,
was vaulted throughout, and ran under the houses
and streets which came to be built outside the
Palaces of the Caliphs ,* it long continued in use,
only falling to ruin at the time of the first great
inundation of Baghdad — presumably that of the
year 466 (a.d. 1074), when the bursting of a dyke
below the KOrij Canal had laid the whole of the
eastern city under water

In addition to the two palaces of the Firdhs and
the Thurayya, Mu'tadid also laid the foundations
of the famous Palace of the Crown (Ifasr-at-Tfij),
which when completed and enlarged by succeeding
sovereigns became in after centuries the chief
official residence of the Caliphs. Mu'tadid, how-
ever, did not live to carry out his plans for the Tij,
and he had even, it was said, countermanded the
building in the year 286 (a. d. 899), on his return from
the expedition against Amid in Upper Mesopotamia,

^ Ibn Serapion, 22; Yakut, i. 808, 924; iii. 871 ; iv. 846; Khatib,
folio 92; Mas'udi, viii. 116; Ibn-al-Athir, x. 62.

252 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch ^

for he was led to fear that from its position the
Tij Palace would be invaded by smoke from the
neighbouring houses of the city suburbs beyond
the wall of the precincts.

In the year 289 (a.d. 902) Mu'tadid was succeeded
by his son 'Ali Muktaft, who, during a reign of six
years, carried to completion the works that his
father had begun, and built the great mosque for
the Friday prayers, within the Palace of the Caliphs.
This was known as the Jimi-al-^asr, and was the
second of the three great mosques of East Baghdad
(the first having been the Rusdfah Mosque, and the
third the Saljuk Mosque of tlie Sultan, both already
described). The ground upon which the palace
mosque was built had been previously occupied by the
dungeons where Mu'tadid kept his state prisoners,
these being certain vaulted chambers which had origi-
nally been used for housing the workmen who built
the Idasanl Palace. 'Ali Muktaf! at the beginning
of his reign ordered these vaults to be demolished,
and a mosque, intended at first only for his personal'
use, to be built in their room. This mosque, however,
was afterwards thrown open to the people, who,
according to Khatib, from an early date took a liking
to come hither for their daily prayers, and here
they would sit till the close of night, discussing
their private affairs. The palace mosque continued
in use during the remaining four centuries of the
Abbasid Caliphate ; at the time of the Mongol siege
it was set on fire and partially burnt, but by order
of Hlildgh was afterwards rebuilt, though doubtless
shorn of much of its former magnificence ; and there
is reason to believe that some vestiges of this
mosque of the palace are still standing near the

253

XVIII.] The Palaces of the Caliphs

ruined minaret of the modem Shh-al-Ghazl (the
Thread Market), which with other existing remains
will be more fully noticed in the concluding chapter
of the present work

Besides building the great mosque, 'All Muktafi
also completed the Palace of the Crown (I^asr-at-
Tdj), which his father had begun. To obtain the
needful materials the Caliph caused the f^asr-al-
Kdmil (the Palace of Perfection), by whom built is
not stated, to be demolished ; and he also threw
down a part of the great White Palace of the
Chosroes at Madiin (Ctesiphon), thus still further
carrying on the work of destruction which Manshr
had begun • (as related in chapter iii), when he
attempted to make use of stones brought from here
for the building of Baghdad. In later times the
Palace of the Tlj was also apparently known as the
Dclr-ash-ShAtiblyah % the meaning of which name is
obscure, but it is under this name that it is referred
to by Idamd-Allah, the Persian writer of the eighth
century (fourteenth a.d.). As already stated, the

^ Khatib, folio loi a, b ; Rash id-ad- Din, 302, 308 ; Niebuhr, ii, 242-
* The name varies in the MSS. of the Nuzhat : the form here given is
that found in both the printed text, p. 147, and the lithographed edition
of Bombay. The British Museum MS. Add. 7707, gives the reading
as Ddr-as-Saltanah^ which was the name of the hall of audience in the
later, second, Palace of the Tij (see below, p. 262), besides being
more generally applied to the great Saljiik Palace, as stated in the
previous chapter. Of the Paris MSS., No. 127 of the Biblioth^que
Nationale agrees with the printed text, while Nos. 128 and 129 give
the reading D dr-ash- Shaiiyah^ which might be translated ' the River
Bank Palace.* Ddr-ash-Shdtibiyah would have the unlikely meaning
of *the Xativa Palace,’ after the town of Xativa in the province of
Valencia in Spain, or (more grammatically) this name might be
translated ‘the Palace of the woman of Xativa*; but both significations
are improbable, and the origin of the name is nowhere explained by
the Moslem authorities.

254 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

Palace of the Tij stood on the Tigris bank below
the yasani Palace, and its foundations were sup-
ported by a great dyke which projected out into
the stream. It was more especially for making this
dyke that the ruins at Madiin were used as a
quarry, quantities of burnt bricks being dug out
from the foundations of the Palace of the Chosroes,
while the ancient battlements of its remaining walls
were taken down and carried up the river to crown
the summit of the Tdj.

This dyke, stretching out into the Tigris, was
a special feature of the Tij Palace, and during the
great inundation of the year 466 (a.d. 1074) all
the boats of Baghdad were moored for safety under
its wall. The main building of the Tij rose like
a ‘ crown ’ above this dyke, supported on five vaults
or arches, these resting on ten dwarf columns, each
five ells (or about 8 feet) in height. 'All Muktaft
also constructed halls of assembly and divers
cupolas in the immediate neighbourhood of the Tij ;
one especially was known as the Cupola of the Ass'
(Kubbat-al-yimir), this being a tower ascended by
a ’ spiral stair, of such an easy gradient that the
Caliph could ride to the summit on a donkey trained
to an ambling gait. Thus without fatigue he could
enjoy the view over the surrounding country, for
the height of this tower is described as very great,
and in plan it was semicircular. A proof of the
immense extent of the buildings erected by 'All
Muktaft may be deduced from the report given by
the contemporary Mas'udl, that this Caliph, at his
death, left nine thousand riding-animals, to wit
horses, mules, and swift dromedaries, which were
all housed within the palace stables.

xviii.] The Palaces of the Caliphs

255

The next Caliph, Muktadir, brother of 'All Muk-
tafl, who began his reign in 295 (a.d. 908), added
considerably to the buildings round the Tij, estab-
lishing a Wild Beast Park in the grounds stretching
between the Palaces of the Tij and the Thurayyi
on the Mhsi Canal. A general idea of what the
Palaces of the Caliph had come to be at this time
is to be gained from the description which Khatib
has left us of the reception granted to the Greek
ambassadors sent by Constantine Porphyrogenitus
to Baghdad in 305 (a.d. 917 )^- The envoys, on
their arrival, had been lodged in the upper part of
East Baghdad, and later they were brought in state
by the Great Road from the Shammislyah Gate,
through the Mukharrim Gate to the Bib-al-'Ammah
(the Public Gate) of the palace precincts, troops in
double line keeping the road for the whole of this
distance. Before being introduced to the presence
of the Caliph, who received them in the Palace of
the T4j, the envoys were shown over the various
buildings within the precincts, and these at the date
in question are said to have numbered twenty-three
separate pala'ces.

Entering through the hall of the Great Public
Gate, the envoys were taken first to the palace
known as the Khin-al-Khayl (the Riding House),
which is, described as for the most part built with
porticoes of marble columns. On the right side of
this house stood five hundred mares .with saddles
of gold or silver, while on the left side stood five
hundred mares with brocade- saddle-cloths and long
head-covers; and each mare was held by the

' Translated in full in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for
January, 1897, p. 35.

256 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ciyt.

groom wearing a magnificent uniform. Beyond
this palace, after passing through various corridors
and halls opening one into the other, lay the Park
of the Wild Beasts, with separate houses for the
various kind of wild animals, entered from the park,
where all the beasts would herd together, or come
up close to the visitors, sniffing and eating from
their hands. The elephant-house was near this, in
which were kept four elephants, caparisoned in
peacock silk brocade ; and on the back of each sat
eight men of Sind, and javelin-men with fire. Then
in another palace there were one hundred lions,
fifty to the right hand and fifty to the left, each lion
being held by its keeper, for about its head and
neck were iron chains ; and in diverse neighbour-
ing gardens there were other elephants and lions,
also giraffes and hunting-leopards, which were all
duly brought out for the inspection of the Greek
ambassadors.

Among the most famous buildings erected by
Muktadir was the Palace of the Tree (Dir-ash-
Shajarah), so called from the tree made of silver,
weighing 500,000 dirhams (or about 50,000 ounces),
which stood in the middle of its palace surrounded
By a great circular tank filled with clear water. The
tree had eighteen branches, every branch having
numerous twigs, on which sat various kinds of
mechanical birds in gold and silver, both large and
small. Most of the branches of the tree were of
silver, but some were of gold, and they spread into
the air carrying leaves of divers colours, the leaves
moving as the wind blew, while the birds through
a concealed mechanism piped and sang. On either
side of this palace, to the right and left of the tank.

xyiii.] The Palaces of the Caliphs 257

stood life-sized figures in two rows, each row
consisting of fifteen horsemen, mounted upon
their mares, both the men and the steeds being
clothed and caparisoned in brocade. In their
hands the horsemen carried long-poled javelins,
and those on the right appeared to be attacking
their adversaries in the row of horsemen on the
left-hand side. It is further stated that in the
time of Muktadir the halls of the Palace of the
Firdiis were hung round with ten thousand gilded
breastplates ; and in a neighbouring corridor
that was 300 ells in length, were ranged on
stands ten thousand other pieces of armour and
arms, to wit, bucklers, helmets, casques, cuirasses,
and coats of mail, with ornamented quivers and
bows.

Near the Firdfis stood the palace called the New
Kiosk (Al-Jawsak-al-Mul^dith), which lay in the
midk of gardens. In its centre was a tank made
of tin-plate {Rasds KaTf), round which flowed a
stream in a conduit also of tin plate, which is described
as being more lustrous than polished silver. This
tank was 30 ells in length by 20 across, and
beside it were set four magnificent pavilions with
gilt seats adorned with gold embroidery of Dabik
work. Round this tank extended the garden, with
lawns wherein grew dwarf palm-trees to the number
of four hundred, the height of each being 5 ells
(about 8 feet), the entire trunk of the trees, from
root to spathe, being enclosed in carved teak wood,
encircled with gilt copper rings. These palms bore
full-grown dates, and by careful cultivation, in almost
all seasons, the fresh ripe fruit might be found on
their branches. In the garden beds also were melons

s

BAGHDAD

258 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ci^

of the sort called Dastabhj’ah, and of many other
species besides b

Probably within the precincts of the Taj Palace
and near the river bank had been the beautiful little
garden laid out by the Caliph l^ahir, brother and
successor of Muktadir, where (according to Mas'udi,
a contemporary, who probably had himself visited
the place) the unfortunate If&hir, after his deposi-
tion, was received in audience by his nephew the
Caliph R^di. The description of the little garden,
as follows, is taken from the history of Mas'hdi,
called the Meadows of Gold, when relating the inter-
view ; — ‘ Now the Caliph Kihir had made in a certain
one of the courts of the palace a garden about a
Jarib (or a third of an acre) in extent, which he had
planted with orange-trees brought from Basrah and
'Omin, of such kinds as have been imported from
the lands of India. And these trees having become
interlaced, the fruits thereof hung like stars, red and
yellow, in among the branches, while round and
about various kinds of shrubs were planted with
sweet-smelling herbs and flowers. Further, in this
same court were kept many species of birds, such as
turtle-doves and ring-doves, blackbirds and parrots,
all of which had been brought thither from foreign
countries and far-off cities, so that the garden was
in the extreme beautiful, and the Caliph Kdhir, who
loved to drink wine, had been wont to hold his
assemblies in this place.’

In after days the Palace of the Tree (Dir-ash-
Shajarah), built under Muktadir as already described,
was used as a state prison by later Caliphs, who,
as a measure of precaution, kept their nearer rela-
* *Arib, 64 ; Khatib, folios 93 b to 96 a ; Yakut, ii. 251.

^xviii.] The Palaces of the Caliphs 259

tions here in honourable confinement, duly attended
by numerous servants and amply supplied with
every luxury, but forbidden, under pain of death, to
go beyond its walls. In the neighbourhood were
also other palaces, for during the fourth century of
the Hijrah {the tenth A.D.), after the Buyid princes
had become masters of Baghdad, the Caliphs being
no longer allowed to take any part in the govern-
ment, spent much of their spare time building
magnificent kiosks within the precincts of the royal
domain. Thus the Caliph Muti*, who reigned from
334 to 363 (a.d. 946 to 974), erected the Peacock
Palace (Ddr-at-Tawiwis) ; also the Murabba'ah and
the Muthammanah Palaces (to wit the Square and
the Octagon House) ; possibly too the palace called
the D^lr Shirshir, the situation of which is unknown ;
and at this period, when the palaces of the Caliphs
may be considered to have attained their utmost
extent and splendour, it is recorded that a certain
treasurer of *Adud-ad-Dawlah was, •'wont to say that
the house of the Caliph in Baghdad covered gpround
equalling in extent the whole city of Shlr 4 z, the
chief town of Firs, and the capital of his master
the Buyid prince.

A century and a half later than the time of the
Buyid supremacy — ^when SuTtan Sanjir, the last of
tiie great Saljfiks, was the protector of the Cali-
phate — the Caliph Mustarshid, who reigned from
5T2 to 529 (a.d. 1 1 18 to 1135), added the great
hall to the Tij Palace, which was used for the
reception of the Wazlrs, who, at the chief festivals,
came to offer their congratulations to the Caliph.
This hall went by the name of its gateway, and
was called the BS.b-al-Hujrah (the Privy Chamber

s 2

26 o Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch. ^

Gate), and here Mustarshid and the succeeding
Caliphs were wont to sit in state, bestowing robes
of honour on their favourites and on the ministers
appointed by the Saljdk Sultan to govern Baghdad
and the province of Mesopotamia

In the long list of the Abbasid Caliphs there are
two (whose reigns are separated by an interval of
two and a half centuries) who figure in our trans-
literation under the similar titles of Muktafi and
Muktafi. The first, ‘All Muktafi, who began his
reign in 289 (a.d. 902), has his name spelt with an
ordinary k, while the name of the last, Muhammad
Muktafi, who ascended the throne in 530 (a.d. 1136),
is spelt with the dotted k, and for greater distinction
their personal names have been given in these
pages with the title. In the reign of the first, 'All
Muktafi, the Palace of the Tij was completed; in
the reign of the last, Muhammad Muktafi, it was
burnt to the ground — this occurring in the year 549
(a.d. 1154), when the building having been struck
by lightning, took fire, which continuing to burn
unchecked during nine days, both the Palace of the
Crown and the adjacent Dome of the Ass were
reduced to ashes. The Caliph Muhammad Muktafi
immediately commanded that the Dome of the Ass
should be rebuilt on the original plan, but dying
before his orders could be carried to completion,
the building was stopped by his successor, and thus
remained in an unfinished state till the year 574
(a.d. 1178), when Mustadl, his grandson, had the
half-built walls demolished.

Their foundations Mustacli ordered to be made

^ Yakut, i. 809 ; ii. 520, 521, 524 ; iv. 34 ; Khatib, folios 92 a, b, 93 a, b ;
Ibn-al-Atbir, x. 62 ; Marasid, i 112, 383 ; Mas'u^, viii. 225, 336.

xvni.] The Palaces of the Caliphs 261

level with the top of the great dyke on which the
older Palace of the Tij had stood, and causing
the charred ruins also of this palace to be dug up,
the space thus obtained was used in part for the
great court of the new, or second. Palace of the TSj,
which Mustadi now proceeded to build. This new
TSj stood somewhat higher up the river bank than
where Mu'tadid had built the first palace ,* but it
overhung the river like the original building, and
is described as standing partly on the great dyke,
round and under which the waters of the Tigris
flowed. The main building, which rose to a height
of 7P ells (about 105 feet) above the water
level, was vaulted, the lower story like the first
Palace of the Tij being supported on five great
arches, springfing from a like number of marble
columns, while in the centre a sixth column sup-
ported the central point of the vaulting on which
the building rested.

On the western bank of the Tigris, in the Karkh
Quarter and opposite the Tdj Palace, there were
in these later times large and very beautiful gardens,
where the Caliphs were wont to land when they
crossed the river; and these pleasure grounds of
the Caliph were known as the Gardens of the
Rakkah, a name which, as already mentioned, is
used to denote any low-lying plain subject to inun-
dation from the river floods. The second Palace
of the Tdj was the chief glory of the latter days of
the Caliphate; in one of its halls the new Caliph,
on his accession, was wont to receive from his
subjects the oath of allegiance, sitting under the
principal dome at a window that looked out on to
the Great Court, and this part of the palace appears

262 Baghdad during the Caliphate

to have been more especially known as the Dir-
as-Saltanah (the Hall of the Sultanate), a name
which, as already mentioned, had possibly been
also given to the earlier Palace of the Tij \

^ See above, note 2 to p. 253; Yakut, i. 809; ii. 804; Marasid,
i- 193*

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dtorh «5VOi>.ooO\diHc5co

CHAPTER XIX

THE PALACE GATES AND ADJOINING QUARTERS.

The Precincts, called the Hanm or Haramayn, and its Wall. The
Quarters of the Mu alii Canal. The Town Wall. Gates of the
Palace. The Bib Gharabah and the Bib Suk-at-Tamr. The Needle-
makers’ Wharf: the Palace of the Cotton Market. The Palaces of
the Princess, Dir Khitun and Dir-as-Sayyidah. The Mustansiriyah
College. The Palace Mosque. The Badr Gate and Palace. The
Elephant House. Market of the Perfumers. Other Markets rouild
the Square of the Mosque. The Rayhiniyin Palace. The Dargih-i-
Khitin and the Libraries. The Nubian Gate and the Great Cross of
the Crusaders. The Public Gate. Gates of the Palace Suburbs and
the Garden Gate. The Gate of Degrees. General arrangement in
the later Palaces,

The Palaces of the Caliphs, the more important
of which have been mentioned in the foregoing
chapter, consisted of a great complex of buildings,
whichj with their gardens and courts, occupied an
area nearly a square mile in extent, surrounded by
a great wall with many gates. This area of the
Palaces is generally referred to by YSJktit in the
seventh century (the thirteenth a.d.) under the
name of the Idarim,. which may be translated
the Precinct or the Sanctuary; while Idamd- Allah
in the succeeding century speaks of it as the
Jdaramayn, another form of the same w'ord, but
in the dual, hence meaning the Double Sanctuary,

264 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

this name probably having reference to the inner
and the outer precincts.

It is uncertain by whom the great wall round
the palace-area was built. Mu'tadid, the first
Caliph to reside permanently in Baghdad after the
return from Sdmarr^, when he enlarged the I^asanl
(as already mentioned), at the close of the third
century (the ninth a.d.), is said to have surrounded
this palace by a wall, which iii part may be identical
with the wall which Yikut describes in the begin-
ning of the seventh century (the thirteenth a,d.).
This last, however, enclosed all the Palaces in
a semicircular sweep, it began at the Tigris bank
above the gardens and came down to the river
again below the Tfij, and in this were the gates to
be mentioned presently.

Outside the precincts and surrounding the Palaces
of the Caliphs on the north, east, and south (the
Tigris occupying their western side), stretched the
later quarters of East Baghdad, which dated from
the middle of the fifth century (the eleventh a.d.),
and these quarters were enclosed by the city wall,
with its four gates (one to the north, two to the
east, and one to the south), which thus followed
a line^-more or less parallel with the inner wall
surrounding the Palaces.

The city wall and gates will be described in the
following chapters, when the outlying suburbs of
Eastern Baghdad come to be dealt with; for we
have first to notice the inner wall which encircled
the Palaces of the Caliphs, with those quarters of
the city which stood more immediately adjacent to
the gates of the palace. YAkht describes the palace
precincts as in his time covering ground to an

XIX.] Palace Gates and adjoining Quarters 265

extent equalling a third part of the whole city of
East Erighdad, being divided from the town quarters
by the inner wall pierced with seven gateways.
These were, three to the north, then near the
north-east comer the two main gates of the palace
precincts, below which for the space of a mile the
wall had no gateway except the small garden gate,
till finally the lowest gate was reached which opened
to the south, close to the Tigris bank, and below the
Palace of the Tijh

The uppermost of the gates in the palace wall
was the Bdb-al-Gharabah, which took its name from
a Gharabah or Babylonian willow-tree which gprew
here. On the Tigris near this gate was the
Mashra'at-al-Ibrlyln (the Wharf of the Needle-
makers), which probably lay close to the eastern
end of the later Bridge of Boats, and this wharf
is often mentioned in connexion with the next g^te
in the palace wall, called the BS.b Shk-at-Tamr (the
Gate of the Date Market), which must have opened
at no great distance from the Bib-al-Gharabah.
The Date Market Gatehouse was a high-built
structure which gave access to a palace within the
precincts, called the DSr-al-Ifutunlyah (the Palace
of the Cotton Market), and this building also over-
looked the Needle-makers’ Wharf. Y^Lkfit states
that in his day this gate and the adjacent palace
were both closed, the gateway having been walled
up in the early part of the reign of the Caliph
Nisir, that is to say shortly after the year 575
(a.d. 1180).

Within the precinct wall, near the Gharabah Gate,
were two palaces called the D 4 r Khitfin and the
^ Ibn Serapion, 22 ; Nuzhat, 147 ; Yakut, ii. 255.

266 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

D 4 r-as-Sayyidah (both names signifying the Palace
of the Princess), which had belonged to the^daughter
of the Caliph Muktadt, who reigned from 467 to 487
(a. D. 1075 to 1094); but both these palaces were
demolished when the Ddr-ar-Rayhfiniyin, which will
be mentioned presently, came to be built Adjacent
to the Date Market Gateway was the palace of the
same name, which lay within the precincts but over-
looking the Wharf of the Needle-makers outside,
and in front of this were terraces occupied by the
sellers of dried fruits. These merchants more espe-
cially had their shops in that part of the town which
lay immediately to the north of the Palaces, where the
roads passing through these quarters converged on
the northern gate of the city wall (as will be more
particularly described in the next chapter), the main
thoroughfare being that of the Tuesday Market,
leading to the Gate of the Sultan^.

Within the precincts, and, as seems probable,
immediately south of the Gharabah Gate (occupying
some of the area formerly covered by the older
yasani Palace, for one of its walls was washed by
the Tigris stream), stood the great College of the
Mustansiriyah. Of this college the ruins still exist,
while of the adjoining Palaces of the Caliphs hardly
a trace remains; but unfortunately, as the college
was only completed in 631 (a.d. 1234), no mention
of it occurs in Yelk^t> who had finished his great
geographical dictionary shortly before this date, and
therefore we do not know for certain on what
grounds of the older precincts the college was
actually built. Mustansir was the penultimate
Caliph of the house of ‘Abbds and the father of
^ Yakut, ii. 255, 519, 520; iii. 783 ; Marasid, i. 383 ; v. 408.

XIX.] Palace Gates and adjoining Quarters 267

Musta'sim, whom put to death, and this

Madrasah of the Mustansiriyah was founded by him
with a view to supplant and eclipse the celebrated
Nizdmiyah College (to be described in chapter xxi),
which Nizim-al-Mulk had built nearly two centuries
before.

We are told that in outward appearance, in state-
liness of ornament and sumptuousness of furniture,
in spaciousness and in the wealth of its pious
foundations, the Mustansiriyah surpassed every-
thing that had previously been seen in Islam. It
contained four separate law-schools, one for each
of the orthodox sects of the Sunnis, with a professor
at the head of each, who had seventy-five students'
(Fakih).in his charge, to whom he gave instruc-
tion gratis. The four professors each received a
monthly salary, and to each of the three hundred
students one gold dindr a month was assigned.
The great kitchen of the college further provided
daily rations of bread and meat to all the inmates.
According to Ibn-al-FurcLt there was a library (D4r-
al-Kutub) in the Mustansiriyah with rare books
treating of the various sciences, so arranged that the
students could easily consult them, and those who
wished could copy these manuscripts, pens and
paper being supplied by the establishment. Lamps
for the students and a due provision of olive oil
for lighting up the college are also mentioned,
likewise, storage places for cooling the drinking-
water ; and in the great entrance hall {Aywdfi) .stood
a clock {Sanddk-as-sSdt, ‘Chest of the Hours,’ doubt-
less some form of clepsydra), announcing the
appointed times of prayer, and marking the lapse
of the hours by day and by night.

268 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

Inside the college a bath house (Idammim) was
erected for the special use of the students, and a
hospital (BimMstdn), to which a physician was
appointed, whose duty it was to visit the place every
morning, prescribing for those who were sick ; and
there were great store-chambers in the Madrasah
provided with all requisites of food, drink, and
medicines. The Caliph Mustansir himself took such
interest in the work of the institution that he would
hardly let a day pass without a visit of inspection ;
and he had caused a private garden to be laid out,
with a belvedere (Manzarah) overlooking the college,
whither it was his wont to come and divert himself,
sitting at a window — before which a veil was hung
— and which opened upon one of the college halls,
so that through this window he could watch all that
went on within the building, and even hear the
lectures of the professors and the disputations of
the students.

A century after its foundation, Ibn Bathtah, who
visited Baghdad in 727 (a.d. 1327), dilates on the
magnificence of the Mustansiriyah College, which
had fortunately escaped destruction, during the
Mongol siege ; and he describes it as situated at
the further end of the Tuesday Market (Suk-ath-
Thalithah), which was the commercial centre of
Baghdad in his days. The law-schools in the
Mustansiriyah were then still frequented by students
of the four orthodox Sunni sects, each sect or law-
school having its separate mosque, and in the hall
the professor of law g^ve his lectures, whom Ibn
Bathteh describes as ‘ seated under a small wooden
cupola on a chair covered by a carpet, speaking with
much sedateness and gravity of mien, he being

xix.] Palace Gates and adjoining Quarters 269

clothed in black and wearing a turban; and there
were besides two assistants, one on either hand,
who repeated in a loud voice the dictation of the
teacher.’

The Persian geographer Hamd- Allah, writing
a dozen years later than I bn Bathtah, also refers
to the Mustansiriyah Madrasah as the most beautiful
building then existing in Baghdad ; and it appears
to have stood intact for many centuries, for the
ruins of the college, as already mentioned, still
exist, occupying a considerable space of ground
immediately below the eastern end of the present
Bridge of Boats. Mustansir likewise restored the
great mosque of the palace (Jdmi‘-al-Kasr), originally
built by the Caliph ‘Alt Muktafl (see p. 252), and
Mustansir set up four platforms {DikkaJi) on the
right or western side of the pulpit, where the
students of the Mustansiriyah were seated and held
disputations on Fridays after the public prayers.
The remains of this mosque also exist, at the
present day occupying part, of the Shk-al-Ghazl (the
Thread Market), at some little distance to the east-
^vard of the ruins of the Madrasah. When Niebuhr
visited Baghdad in 1750 he found that the ancient
kitchen of the Mustansiriyah College was clearly to
be recognized, being used in his day as a weighing-
house; and Niebuhr copied here the inscription which,
gives the name and titles of the Caliph Mustansir,
with the statement tha.t this Madrasah had been
completed in the year 630 (a.d. 1233). A similar
inscription (also extant) was seen by Niebuhr in
the ruined mosque, with the date of 633 (a.d. 1236),
doubtless when the restoration by Mustansir was
finished, for, as already said, the foundation walls in

270 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

all probability are far older than this date, and belong
to the great mosque of the Palace of the Caliph \

The third gate in the palace wall, which opened
at no great distance to the eastward beyond the
two gates of the Willow Tree and of the Date
Market, was called the B 4 b-al-Badrlyah or the Bib
Badr, from the Market of Badr that lay immediately
outside, where had stood the Palace of Badr, the
favourite and all-powerful minister of the Caliph
Mu'tadid. This Badr had originally been a slave
of the Caliph Mutawakkil, who had given him his
freedom, and Badr rapidly rose to the command of
the armies under Mu'tadid, during whose Caliphate
Badr came to be considered as the chief man of
the state, and among other matters superintended
the restoration of the Mosque of Manshr in Western
Baghdad, as related in chapter iii. He fell a
victim, however, to the jealousy of ‘All Muktafl, son
and successor of Mu'tadid, and Badr was put to
death in the year 289 (a.i>. 902). The Bib Badr
had formerly been called the Bib-al-Khissah (the
Privy Gate), but it had changed its name after the
Palace of Badr came to be built.

mentions that the Bib Badr had been
closed since the time of the riots during the reign
of the Caliph Tii‘ — that is to say since the year
367 (a.d. 978), when 'Adud-ad-Dawlah the Buyid
made himself master of Baghdad — but Yikit also
asserts that the Caliph Tii' restored this gate, and
that opposite to it had stood the Dir-al-Fil (the
Elephant Palace), which the belvedere (Manzarah)

^ Kazwbi, 21 1; Abu-l-Fida, History^ iv. 471; Abu-l-Faraj, 425,
442; Ibn-al-Furat MS., folios 20 b, 21a; Ibn Batutah, ii. 108;
Nuzhat, 148 ; Niebuhr, ii. 241 ; Jones, 312.

XIX.] Palace Gates and adjoining Quarters 271

of the gate overlooked. The Caliph T 4 i' afterwards
demolished this D&r-al-Fil and turned its site into
a burial-ground ; this was at the close of the fourth
century (the tenth a.d.), and from what Ydkht
writes it would seem that in his day, namely at the
beginning of the seventh century (the thirteenth
A. D.), the ancient Badriyah Gate and the Badr
Palace had both disappeared*. Half a century
before the time of Yakut, however, the Bib Badr
was in existence, and the traveller I bn J ubayr passed
through it to reach a court of the mosque, within
the Palace of the Caliph, where he heard a notable
sermon preached on the 15th day of the month
5 afar, 581 (May 18, 1185) ; further, he mentions the
belvedere or upper chamber overlooking this court,
and states that the Caliph Nisir with his sons sat
at the window of this belvedere to listen to the
sermon.

Immediately outside the wall of the palaces, and
beginning at the Badr Gate, was the street known
as the Market of the Perfumers (Shk-ar-RayliS.ntyin),
which was overlooked by the palace of the same
name (Dir-ar-Rayh^ntyln) standing inside the Harim
wall*. The Market of the Perfumers led directly

^ Yakut is certainly in error (i. 444) in stating that the Badr Gate
was in the vicinity of the Bib-al-Mar 3 .tib of the palace wall and of
the city gate called Bib Kalwidhi, since the first of these, and the
nearer of the two to the Bib Badr, must have been at least a mile
distant from it. Further, the author of the Mar&^d is equally in error
(i. H2) in describing the Bib Badr as having been built by the Caliph
Tii', seeing that it took its name from the favourite minister of that
Caliph’s great-grandfather.

® Rayhdn, which in Mesopotamia and the East generally meant
the Basil plant, in Spanish- Arabic was especially used for the Myrtle ;
and it has passed into modern Spanish, where Array an is the common
name for myrtle, e. g. the Patio de los Array anes or ‘ Court of Myrtles ’
in the Alhambra of Granada.

272 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

into the square before the great mosque of the
palace (Jimi'-al-Ifasr), which last, as has already been
said, lay immediately within the precincts adjacent
to the Bdb Badr, or rather between it and the next
gate called the B^b Ntibi.

The Market of the Perfumers — ^where sweet-basil
(Rayhin) and other flowers were sold — was at one
time a place of considerable importance, and diverg-
ing from it were many minor -market streets. In
one of these the weavers of palm baskets (As-
Safatlyin) had their shops, twenty-four in number,
wdth a caravanserai known as the Khin 'Asim, and
twenty-three other shops adjacent thereto. The
perfume-distillers (Al-*Attiriyln) also had their
market near here with forty-three shops, and close
by were the sixteen workshops of the drawers
of gold wire, while from this roadway led the Siik-
as-Sarf (the Market of the Money-changers), the
whole forming a network of thoroughfares l5dng
round the great square of the palace mosque, to
the north of the Gate of Badr and the Nubian Gate
(Bib Nflbt).

A considerable portion of the origirial Market of
the Perfumers was thrown down during the altera-
tions effected by the Caliph Mustazhir between the
years 503 and 507 (a.d. 1109 to 1113), when he
demolished the Ddr KhAtfln and the palace built
by his sister near the Gharabah Gate, known as the
Dir-as-Sa57yidah, and having bought up part of
the site of the Market of the Perfumers, he caused
part of the street here to be removed. A large
area was thus rendered available, and a new palace
was built, which overlooking the remainder of the
Perfumers’ Market, was known as the Dir-ar-Ray-

xjx.] Palace Gates and adjoining Quarters 273

^jintyin, taking its name from the adjacent market.
It formed a great quadrilateral building, surrounding
a court which measured 600 ells (about 300 yards)
square, the centre being occupied by a garden, and
within the circuit of the new palace there were more
than sixty halls (Hujrah). One of these was known
by the Persian name of the Dargpah-i-KhitAn (the
Lady’s Palace); it stood in the part nearest to the
Nubian Gate (which will be described presently),
and this palace was afterwards inhabited by the
Princess Fitimaih, granddaughter of Ml.lik Shih
the SaljA^, and wife of the Caliph Muhammad
Muktafi, whom she espoused in 534 (a,d. 1140).
She is said to have been a learned princess, and
appears to have exercised some influence on the
political complications of the time ; she died in this
Dargih-i-Khitiin in 542 (a.d. 1147) before her
husband, and was buried by him in the tombs of
the Caliphs at Rusifah.

Half a century after the foundation of the great
Palace of the Rayh^niyin, the Caliph Mustanjid,
grandson of Mustazhir, in the year 557 (a.d. 1162)
built the Manzarah (belvedere), which overhung the
Market of the Perfumers close to the B^b Badr;
this probably being the belvedere mentioned in the
year 581 by Ibn Jubayr, where he saw the Caliph
Nisir sitting in state to hear the sermon in the
palace mosque, as has already been described.
The later Caliphs appear to have spent much of
their time in the Palace of the Rayhaniyin ; and in
the garden of the great court, at no great distance
behind, the belvedere, Musta'sim, the last of the
Caliphs, built two Treasuries or Libraries for his
books. These were still standing intact after the

T

BAGHDAD

274 Baghdad during the Caliphate [c^.

Mongol siege, for about the year 700 (a.d. 1300)
the author of the Mar&sid describes them, adding,
however, that in his time the greater part of the
adjacent palace was in ruin, and that the grounds
had become a wilderness, where nothing grew, but
the plants that had run wild of the former garden of
the Caliph *.

In the palace wall to the east of the Bib Badr
were the two main gates of the precincts, called
respectively the Bib-an-Nibi (the Nubian Gate) and
the Bib-al-*Ammah (the Public Gate). The Nubian
Gate was also called the Bib-al-'Atabah (the Gate of
the Threshjpld), this being the name more especially
for its inner portal, which, as the nominal threshold
of the abode of the Caliph, was solemnly kissed by
all ambassadors of foreign potentates who came
to Baghdad. The ‘ threshold ’ was a block of
white marble, like a column, laid across in front
of the inner gateway. It was probably under this
stone that the Caliph Nisir caused the great cross
of the Crusaders to be buried, which Saladin had
sent him as a present. The cross, which is de-
scribed as being of immense size, and as having
been held in high honour by the Christians, fell into
the hands of the Moslems, with much other booty,
at the battle of blattin in 583 (a.d. 1187), when
Saladin overthrew the power of the Franks in
Palestine. From the battlefield the cross had first
been taken as a trophy to Damascus, whence in the
year 585 (a.d. 1189) it was brought to Baghdad,
where, says the chronicle, the Caliph ordered it ‘ to

^ Yakut, i. 444 ; ii. 255, 519 ; iv. 665, 666 ; Marasid, i. 382 ; iii. 162 ;
Mas'udi, viii. 114, 161, 218 ; Ibn Jubayr, 223 ; Ibn Khalbkan, No. 703,
p. 20..

^ix.] Palace Gates and adjoining Quarters 275

be buried under the threshold of the Bib-an-Nhbi,
with a small part thereof projecting forth, this same
being of brass, but gilt, which the people passing
over would tread under foot, spitting thereon ; and
thus it was done on the i6th of the month Rabi' II
of that year’ (June, 1189) ’•

The Bdb-an-Nhbi at one period must have been
used as the principal gateway of the Palaces, and
more than half a century before the reign of the
Caliph Nisir, at the time of the riots which broke
out at Baghdad in the year 520 (a.d. 1126), when
the Caliph Mustarshid was fighting against Sultan
Mahmhd the Saljuk, the chronicle states that the
Nubian Gate was the only one allowed to remain
open in the palace precincts, all others having been
blocked or locked up by the orders of the Caliph.
The most frequently mentioned, however, of the
gates of the palace was the B^b-al-'Ammah —
meaning the Gate of the Commonalty, or the Public
Gate — which was also known as the B^b 'Ammh-
rtyah. Its huge iron gates are said to have been
brought to Baghdad by the Caliph Mu'tasim from
the city of Amorium in Asia Minor, which city he
had stormed and burnt to the ground during his cele-
brated campaign of the year 223 (a.d. 838) against
the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus. The B4b-al-
Ammah would appear to have been the original
entrance to the grounds of the IJasani Palace ; it is
mentioned by I bn Serapion, and the Canal of the
Palaces entered by it, after passing the Gate of the
Fief of Mushjir (as described in chapter xvi), the site

Abu Shamah, ii. 82, 139. This reference I owe to Professor Lane-
Poole. Some curious details are given as to the earlier history of this
great cross.

T 2

276 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ci^

of which must have been afterwards taken up by
the Perfumers’ Market.

Within the yarim wall and occupying the space
between the Nubian Gate and the Public Gate
were suburbs inhabited by the lowest orders of the
Baghdad populace, being closed off from the adjacent
palace precincts by an inner wall, in which opened
three chief gateways, besides posterns. These
gates of the inner wall, as described by YikAt at
the beginning of the seventh century (the thirteenth
A.D.), were first the Bdb-ad-Duwwimit (the Gate of
Tops, such as children play with), next the Bib
'Ula 3 /yin (which may mean the Hyaena Gate), and
thirdly the Bib-al-Haram (the Gate of the Sanctuary).

Returning to the Bib-al-*Ammah, the wall of the
precincts ran thence for about a mile, first south-
east, and then south-west, before it reached the
Bib-al-Maritib near the river bank, and in this
long stretch was only one opening, namely the
Bib-al-Bustin (the Garden Gate). Outside the wall
near this gate began the quarter known as the
Maminlyah (which will be described in chapter
xxi) ; and the Garden Gate was remarkable for
its Manzarah (belvedere), which overlooked the
Place of Sacrifice, where, on the lOth of the month
Dhu-l-Hijjah, on the occasion of the greater festival
which closed the pilgrim season, the victim was
solemnly sacrificed.

The lowest of the gates in the precinct wall, and
probably opening near the T4j Palace, was the Bib-
al-Maritib (the Gate of Degrees), which is described
as having been one of the finest and best built of
those giving access to the Harim. Yikfit adds that'
in the old days its warder had always been a person

XIX.] Palace Gates and adjoining Quarters 277

of importance, and the Gate of Degprees stood at
a distance of two bow-shots, or a couple of hundred
yards, from the Tigris bank. Such were the gates
in the palace wall surrounding the Pjlarim or Sanc-
tuary, as described by Yiklit, who explains that
though the royal precincts were chiefly occupied by
the numerous Palaces of the Caliphs, various minor
quarters were also included within the walls, these
being inhabited by the personal attendants of the
sovereigTi and many of the great officers of state.
Access to the actual Palace of the Caliph, and his
private parks and gardens, was only gained by
passing an inner wall, which on the land side en-
tirely surrounded the royal residence, and cut it off
from all intrusion from the city quarters ; but egress
from the palace gardens was kept free on the river
side, where the Tigris for nearly a mile formed the
boundary of the precincts

From the description summarized in the preceding
pages, it is evident that at the time when Y4kflt
wrote both the Firdfls Palace and the Dasani had
long since disappeared, having fallen to ruin probably
before the beginning of the fifth century (the eleventh
A.D.). The site of the Firdtis, immediately to the
south of the Gate of the Tuesday Market of the old
Mukharrim Quarter (mentioned by Ibn Serapion),
probably lay some distance outside the wall of the
palaces which Ydkht has described. The grouqd
where the yasani had formerly stood appears to
have been occupied at the close of the fifth century
(the eleventh a.d.) by the palaces which stood near
the three Gates of the Willow Tree, of tfie Date

* Ibn Serapion, 23 ; Yakut, 1,451; ii. 255; Mushtarik, 130 ; Ibp-al-
Athir, X. 449 ; Fakhri, 276.

273 Baghdad during the Caliphate

Market, and of Badr, opening in the north wall of
the precincts, where in later times the Mustansiriyah
College and the great Palace of the Rayhintyin
came to be built.

To attempt any exact plan of the Palaces of the
Caliphs is of course impossible, but from all that
has come down to us it seems probable that the
ancient minaret at the present day standing in
the Thread Market (SCik-al-Ghazl), at a considerable
distance from the ruins of the Mustansiriyah College,
and which bears an inscription of the Caliph Mus-
tansir, was only restored, not built by him, being,
as already said, a part of the great palace mosque
erected by the Caliph 'Ali Muktafi. In the latter
days of the Caliphate the area of the yarlm, or
precincts, as described by Yikht, would appear to
have contained two chief palaces, one, the New Tdj,
which stood on the river bank rather above the
site of the first Palace of the Tij (described by I bn
Serapion), and secondly, the Palace of the Rayhiniyin,
lying at some distance from the Tigris and below
the Mustansiriyah College. To the eastward stood
the great palace mosque, at the north-east angle
of the Harim walls, and of this building the minaret
in the Sdlc-al-Ghazl is now the sole remaining
vestige-

CHAPTER XX

THE QUARTERS NORTH OF THE PALACES

The wall of East Baghdad and its four Gates. The B^b-as-Sult^n
and the Sultanas Market. Streets of the Tuesday Market. Quarters
built by Muktadi after the Inundation. The Road of the two Arch--
ways. The Street of the Canal. The Karih Ibn Razin and the
Muktadtyah. Mukhtllrah Quarter and the Bib Abraz. College of
the Tijiyah and the Wardiyah Cemetery. The Bib Zafar and the
Zafariyah Quarter. The Quarter of the Judge’s Garden and other
quarters called Karih.

The modern city of Baghdad, on the east bank
of the Tigris, is surrounded on three sides by an
ancient wall, pierced by four gateways, one of these
bearing an inscription set up there by the Caliph
Nzlsir. During the reign of this Caliph Baghdad
was visited by Ibn Jubayr, and the description he
has left of the city wall, with four gates, makes it
certain that the present wall is virtually identical
with the one which Ibn Jubayr described in 581
(a.d. 1185), three quarters of a century before the
Mongol siege.

This wall, according to the Persian historian
Hamd-Allah, was first erected by the Caliph Mus-
tazhir, and the chronicle of Ibn-al-Athlr confirms

28o Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch,

the fact under the record of events of the year 488
(a.d. 1095). Three-quarters of a century after this,
the Caliph Mustadi repaired or rebuilt the wall,
as recorded in a contemporary account written by
the anonymous epitomist of Ibn Hawkal, and Ibn-
al-Athtr gives us the exact date of this restoration,
namely the year 568 (a.d. 1173). The epitomist
of Ibn Hawlcal, after mentioning that in his own
day the Nahr Mu'alli Quarter (which is the name
both he and Y^k^it give to the suburbs round the
palaces forming new Baghdad) was surrounded by
this strong and high wall, states that outside the
wall was a deep ditch connected with the Tigris
above and below, and that water thus flowed round
the whole city. The epitomist further adds that at
this period the more ancient • northern quarters of
East Baghdad had already fallen totally to ruin,
with the exception of the outlying suburb round
the shrine of Abu Hanifah and the great mosque
at Rusifah (as described in chapter xiv), and that
the only populous quarters in his day were those
lying immediately outside and surrounding the
Palaces of the Caliphs.

A dozen years after this the traveller Ibn Jubayr,
who visited Baghdad in 581 (a.d. 1185), describes
with much minuteness the city as he found it, and
as already said especially mentions the town wall
with its four gates, which enclosed the suburbs that
had grown up round the palaces during the preceding
century. The four gates will be more fully noticed
in the following pages when speaking of the several
quarters to which they gave egress, but briefly to
name them as described by Ibn Jubayr and by
yamd-Allah the Persian geographer, they were

XX.] The Quarters North of the Palaces 281

these. In the north wall, (i) the Gate of the Sultan,
now called the Bdb-al-Mu'azzam ; in the east wall,
(ii) first the Zafariyah Gate, which the Persian
author calls the Khurisin Gate, and which is now
known as the B 4 b-al-Wustdnt, and next (iii) the
Idalbah Gate, at the present day shut up and called
the Gate of the Talisman, from the inscription of
the Caliph Nisir, already mentioned; lastly, to the
south, (iv) the Basaliyah Gate, referred to during
the Mongol siege by the Persian writers as the
Gate of Kalwddhd, and which Idamd- Allah calls by
the curious title of the Bib-al-Khalaj, this at the
present day being known as the Eastern Gate (Bib-
ash-Sharki) \

The description given by Hamd-Allah, writing in
the year 740 (a.d. i 339) — three-quarters of a century,
therefore, after the Mongol siege — exactly corre-
sponds with what is found at the present day. The
city wall, he says, was built of kiln-burnt bricks,
the ditch outside being lined with these bricks
likewise, and the wall extended in the form of a
semicircle, measuring 18,000 paces round, going
from the Tigris bank above the city to the river

^ Nuzhat, 147, and Guzidah, under reign of the Caliph Mustazhir;
Yakut, iv, 845, and Ibn Hawkal, 164, note Ibn-al-Athir, x, 172;
xi, 260; Ibn Jubayr, 231 ; Jones, 310. On p, 309, Commander Jones
in the matter of the age of the present walls, states his opinion that
*in all probability [the Gate of the Talisman, rebuilt in 618 or A,l), 1221 1 ,
is of later construction than may parts of the foundation of the wall,
for they bear the impress of age, and exhibit, moreover, the open brick
and mortar work peculiar to the older Masannehs-^ du name applied to
substantial embankments of masonry, built principally as water de-
fences, on which the fortifications are raised. The foundation of the
Baghdad walls may therefore date from the third century of the
Hejireh.’ In point of fact, they date from the fifth century, equivalent
to the eleventh century a.d.

282 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

again below the southern quarters \ The great
Palace of the Buyids, and of the Saljhk Sultans who
succeeded to their power, as has already been shown
in chapter xvii, lay to the north of the new city,
covering part of the ground formerly occupied by
the Shammistyah Quarter; and in front of this
palace stood the great mosque called the Jimi'-as-
Sultin, from which a road went southward, entering
the city by the single gate in the north wall called
either the BcLb-Shk-as-Sultin (the Gate of the
Sultan’s Market) or simply the Bdb-as-Sult&n (the
Sultan’s Gate).

This gateway is frequently mentioned by the
Persian historians in their accounts of the siege of
Baghdad by the Mongols. At the present day the
Bdb-al-Mu‘azzam occupies its site, being so called
from the shrine of Abu Hanifah the Imim, which
lies some distance to the north of it, and standing in
a position to the westward of the former Palaces of
the Sultan. Immediately within the gate, and going
down towards the Palaces of the Caliphs, was the
market called Shk-as-Sultin, at the lower end of
which came a street named the Darb-al-Munirah, in
the immediate neighbourhood of the Mu'all^ Canal.
Another street also mentioned by the same authority
(Yikht) as situated on this canal is the Darb-al-
Ajurr (the Street of Kiln-burnt Bricks), and this in
the early part of the seventh century (the thirteenth
A.D.) was the centre of a populous quarter. A
hundred years later, when Ibn Batutah visited
Baghdad in 727 (a.i>. 1327), the main thoroughfare

* The printed text of the Nnzhat, p. 147, gives the number as 15,000
Giixis or paces; the London and the Paris MSS., however, all give
18,000 Gims, as also the lithographed text, p. 135.

XX.] The Quarters North of the Palaces 283

across these markets had reverted to the older
name of the Street of the Tuesday Market \ which,
beginning within the northern g^te in the city wall,
came down to the wall of the Palaces of the Caliph,
and next passing through the Market of the Per-
fumers (Shk-ar-Rayhiniyin), communicated with the
square in front of the great mosque of the palace.

The quarters surrounding the Palaces of the Caliph
to the eastward, away from the Tigris bank, and to
the southward towards the town'of Kalwddhi down-
stream, for the most part were included within the
lines of the city wall, though there were suburbs
beyond the Bib-az-Zafariyalv to the north-east, as
also beyond the Bib-al-Basaliyah to the south, other-
wise called the Kalwidhi Gate. These eastern and
southern quarters were the latest to be built in
East Baghdad, and dated in the main from the reign
of Muktadi, after whom one quarter — the Mu^ta-
diyah — was named. This Caliph was the con-
temporary of Milik Shih, the founder of the Mosque
of the Sultan, already described in chapter xvii, and
of his famous Wazir the NizS:m-al-Mulk, who built
the College of the Nizelmiyan, which stood on the
southern side of the palaces and Muktadi was father
of the Caliph Mustazhir, who built the city wall.

The reign of Muktaiii, therefore, which lasted
from the year 467 to 487 (a.d. 1075 to 1094), and
of his son, witnessed a considerable extension to the
area of East Baghdad. The city had been to some
extent left in ruins at the end of the previous reign
of Ifiim, when in the year 466 (a.d. 1074) the
whole eastern district was laid under water through

^ Yakut, i. S9 ; ii. 564; Ibn Jubayr, 231 ; Rashid-ad-Din, 283; Ibn
Batutah, ii. 108.

284 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .^

the bursting of the great Mu'izziyah Dyke of the
I^Mj Canal. The Tigris at the time had been in
flood, and further a strong wind from the desert
had thrown back the waters, which, it is reported,
rose so high as o reach even the roofs of the
houses. The calamity was the more terrible from
its having occurred in the darkness of the night,
and an immense number of people perished by the
sudden falling in of the walls which had been under-
mined by the rising torrent. The new quarters
planned by Muktadi replaced the ruins that had
been thus caused by the floods, and extended round
the older Mamhniyah suburb, which had adjoined
the Palaces of -the Caliphs to the south-east, being
described by Ydkht as curving down from the line
of the Mu‘alli Canal on the north-east, back to the
Tigris bank on the south ; and, as already stated,
these suburbs during the succeeding reign of Mus-
tazhir were enclosed by the line of the new city
wall.

From the square of the palace mosque a thorough-
fare running northward, parallel with the Mu'alli
Canal, led past the ancient Abraz Gate (in the
former wall of the Mukharrim Quarter) to the BlLb-
az-Zafariyah in the new city wall. This thorough-
fare is known as the Road of the Two Archways
(Shiri'-al-'Akdayn), namely the Archway of the Ar-
tificer (‘Akd-al-Mustani‘) and the Archway of the
Armourers ('Akd-az-Zarridin). Leaving the square
of the great mosque of the palace (Rahbah Jimi*-
al-Kasr) at the north-east comer, the road, after
a short distance, came first to the Archway of the
Artificer, which is described by Y^lkfit as being
‘a great gate in the midst of the city,’ and after

^x.] The Quarters North of the Palaces 285

passing through it the highway bifurcated. To the
right the road led down to the Mamtjniyah Quarter
and the gate called the Bib-al-Azaj, which will be
described in the next chapter, while to the left the
main thoroughfare continued north, following the
line of the Mu‘alli Canal.

The Mu'alld Canal here ran in a conduit, partly
underground, and to the right of it was the Road
of the Canal (Darb-an-Nahr). The main thorough-
fare, after skirting the canal for the distance of a
bowshot (say somewhat less than a hundred yards),
next reached the quarter called the ll^arih Ibn
Razin, a place of considerable extent, since to cross
it was ‘ a good horse gallop by which a distance of
about half a mile may be indicated.

The Road of the Canal, already mentioned, also
led into this quarter, through which passed the

’ On several occasions Yakut makes use of the terms ‘bowshot'
and ‘horse gallop’ to mark short distances, but he nowhere explains
what length these measures represented, and the dictionaries give
no aid in the matter. A ‘bowshot’ or ‘arrow flight’ {ghalwah or
ra 7 nyah-sahni) may approximately be estimated at somewhat less than
a hundred yards, but the term was used vaguely and often meant any
distance up to a quarter of a mile or even more. Thus Idrisi (p. 144)
speaks of the Island of Rawclah, near Cairo, as being two miles long
(which it is) and ‘a bowshot’ across, it measuring in point of fact
about 500 yards in breadth. Again, Ibn Jubayr (p. 50) describes
the Sphinx as lying ‘ a bowshot ’ distant from the Great Pyramid, and
the space which separates the two is at least 350 yards. Lastly, the
Hellespont at Abydos is described as ‘ a bowshot ’ across (Kitilb-al-
*Uyfln, p. 26 ; Abud-Fida, p. 200), and the distance is, in reality, over
three-quarters of a mile. A ‘horse gallop’ {shawt-af-^faras) may be
estimated at about half an Arab mile or 1,000 yards. Thus Yakut
(i. 263) in describing Alexandria speaks of the Pharos as standing
opposite the harbour on the point of the island, which last lay out to
sea ‘ a horse gallop ’ distant from the mainland, 'rhe islantl is now
joined to the coast by the silting up of the old harbour, but judging by
the present maps, half a mile would be a fair estimate of the distance
which formerly was covered by the sea.

286 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch ^

Street of the Nut Market (Darb-al-Lawziyah). To
the north-west of the I^ar&h of I bn Razln stretched
the Quarter of the Muktadlyah, already referred to,
which was named after its founder the Caliph
Muktadi, while beyond the Ibn Razin Quarter to
the north stood the Archway of the Armourers,
which could be closed by a gate. This was some-
times called the New Archway, but it came to be
known as the 'Akd-az-ZarrAdin, they being the
smiths or armourers who forged coats of mail, and
who lived near this part of the roadway.

The word Karih, which occurs in connexion with
the name of many different quarters in this part
of the city, is explained by Yikht as signifying a
garden in the Baghdad dialect ; with the lapse of
time, however, these ‘gardens’ coming to be built
over, the term ^ardk continued in use as the name
of the new suburb. The Muktadiyah'^ Quarter,
which as already mentioned lay on the north-western
side of the l^arSh of Ibn Razin, is one of those
which suffered most during the second of the great
inundations of Baghdad, namely that of the year
554 (a.d. 1159), on which occasion all the upper
part of the city was for a time again laid under
water ; and YikClt reports that little beyond mounds
of mud covering the ruins of former buildings
remained visible, after the river had subsided, to
mark the position of the various submerged quarters,

^ The name Maktadtyah is by nustake printed Muktadiytyah in
Yakut, i. 774, and the Mararid, i 185 ; the right reading, however,
is given both in a note to this last as an alternative reading, and in
the text of Yakut, iv. 45. From the chronicle of Ibn-al-Athir, x. 156,
there csm be no doubt that Muktadi, who died in A.H. 487— and not
Mufaadir who was killed in A.H. 330 — was the Caliph who built this
Quarter.

,xx.] The Quarters North of the Palaces 287

which extended all the way from the Muk:tad!3rah
down past the Mamiintyah Quarter, and to the Azaj
Gate to the south-east of the palaces.

Beyond the second of the two archways, that of
the Armourers, described above, the thoroughfare
again bifurcated ; the road to the right (turning
eastward) led to the quarter called the I^arAh-al-
Kidi (the Garden of the Judge), while to the left
the main thoroughfare continuing northward first
traversed the Mukhtirah Quarter, and then came
to the old gate, formerly opening in the wall of
the Mukharrim Quarter, called the B^Lb Abraz K At
the beginning of the seventh century (the thirteenth
A.D.), when Ydkht wrote, the gateway of the BUb
Abraz — which name he gives under the corrupt
form of Biyabraz or Bayraz — had long been in ruin,
and the cemetery called the Wardiyah then lay
beyond it. The Bib Abraz is first mentioned by
Ibn Serapion, in the early part of the fourth century
(the tenth a.d.), and, as will be remembered, it was
then the limit of the three northern quarters of
East Baghdad to the south-east, opening in the wall
of the Mukharrim Quarter, where the Mu'alli Canal
entered the city. Yikit also gives this gateway
the name of the Bib Bin, derived evidently from the
canal called the Nahr Bin, from which the Mu'alli
Canal (through the Nahr Misi) originally took its
waters

Near the Bib Abraz, during Saljii^ times, namely

^ Ibn-al-Athir, x. 6 s, 156; xi. 164; Yakut, i. 807; ii. 564; iv. 45,
46, 440 ; Marasid, iii. 252.

* Unless the Mdsi Canal, from the Nahrawin, had become silted
up by the thirteenth century A.D., Yakut (iv. 845) must be mistaken
in saying that the waters of the Mu'alli Canal are derived from the
Khili§.

288 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .,

about the year 482 (a.d, 1089), stood the college
called the Madrasah-at-T4jlyah, built by Tdj-al-
Mulk, chancellor of Sultan Milik Shih, and during
this period the cemetery of the Bib Abraz was
used as the burial-place of many persons of note.
This cemetery, otherwise known as the Wardiyah,
extended beyond the Abraz Gate, to the left of the
roadway, and the thoroughfare thence passed directly
to the gate of the town wall called the Bab Zafa-
liyah. Round this gateway lay the Zafariyah Quarter,
which took its name from the Karih or Garden
of Zafar, lying outside the quarter, its original owner
Zafar^ having been one of the chief servants of
the Caliph, though of which Caliph, or when Zafar
flourished, is not stated. From the details given
of its position there can be little doubt that the
Bib Zafartyah of I bn Jubayr and Yikit — which
yamd-Allah a century after the Mongol invasion
names the Bib Khurisin (and some MSS. g^ve it
as the Gate of the Khurisin Road) — is identical
in position with the modern Bib-al-Wustini, which,
as already stated, is the north-east gate in the
present city wall, through which passes the high-
road to Persia and Khurisin.

Returning once again within the city limits, it will
be remembered that the thoroughfare after passing
through the Archway of the Armourers bifurcated,
and the main road to the left has just been described.
The branch to the right led eastward from the
Armourers’ Gate for the distance of an arrow flight

^ In the printed text of Jbn Jubayr, p. 231, line 8, the name of this
gate is spelt B 4 b-as-Safariyah (with an initial Sdd^ in place of Zi),
but there can be little question that Zafariyah is the right reading, as
given in Yakut and Ibn-al-Athir in the passages quoted below.

j^x.] The Quarters North of the Palaces 289

(or about one hundred yards), reaching a point
where the road ag^in bifurcated. To the left, east-
ward, it led straight to the quarter called the arih-
al-Ifddi (the Judge’s Garden), while to the right
and south of this the branch road gave access first
to the place called the IJardh of Abu-sh-Shahm,
and next to the quarter known as Al-If ubaybit (the
little Domes). Of the founders of these various
suburbs nothing is known, but Yikfit adds that the
four quarters called after the l^ardhs, or Gardens,
of Ibn Razin, Zafar, Al-If&di (the Judge), and
Abu-sh-Shahm, were each in his day standing apart
like so many separate hamlets ; also they were well
built, populous, and spacious quarters, each having
its own mosque and market streets \

* Ibn Serapion, 22 ; Yakut, iii. 587 ; iv. 45, 845, 920 ; Marasid, ii.
388, 393 ; iii. 252 ; Ibn-al-Athir, x. 120 ; Nuzhat, 147.

BAGHDAD

U

CHAPTER XXI

THE QUARTERS EAST AND SOUTH OF THE PALACES

The Mamiiniyah Quarter. The Halbah Gate and its Inscription.
The Persian Fief and the Burj-al-'Ajamt. The Katfah Quarter and
the Rayydn. The Bib Basaliyah or Gate of Kalwidhi. The town-
ship of Kalwidhi. Palace of the Kalwidhi Rakkah, The Azaj
Gate. Karih Juhayr, the Zandaward Monastery: the Maydin and
Mas*udah Quarters. The eastern Kurayyah and the Nizimiyah
College. The Bahiiyah and the TutusM Hospital. The later
Tuesday Market.

The quarters just described lay immediately within
the city wall, between the Zafarlyah and the Idalbah
Gates, and to the east of the thoroughfare known
as the Street of the Two Archways, which was
the left-hand branch at the first bifurcation outside
the Archway of the Artificer. The right-hand
branch at this bifurcation led south through the
Mamdniyah Quarter to the gateway within the city,
known as the Bib-al-Azaj, and thence to the Bdb-
al-Basaliyah, which opened in the lowest part of
the city wall beyond the Basaliyah Quarter.

The Mamhniyah Quarter, as already stated in
chapter xviii, owed its name to the Caliph Mamhn,
whose attendants had built their houses here on
lands adjacent to the palace afterwards called the

Quarters East and South of Palaces 291

jj^asr yasanl. In general terms the Mamhniyah
Quarter may be described as including the whole
of the space between the wall of the Palaces of the
Caliph near the original Ka§r-al-yasant, and. the
gate in the city wall called the Bib IJalbah, and
it extended down to the Azaj Gate within the city
on the south, while on the north it was bounded
by the various ]^arSl;is to the east of the highroad
of the two archways. The Mamtinlyah included
many minor quarters, and all these are said to
have suffered considerable damage during the great
inundation of the year 554 (a.d. 1159) ; the MamAn-
tyah, however, must have been subsequently rebuilt,
for in the middle of the next . century, H614g(i, on
entering Baghdad after the great siege, took up
his abode here, prior to visiting the Palaces of the
Caliphs.

At the end of the main street crossing the MamUn-
lyah was the Bcib I^albah, the gate in the city wall
described by Ibn Jubayr in 581 (a'.d. 1x85), and
which is also frequently mentioned in the accounts
of the Mongol siege. This gate was the next, on
the south, to the B^Lb Zafar, and it is the present
Bib-at-Talism, or the Talismanic Gate, which still
bears the inscription set up here by the Caliph
Nisir, referred to above. This inscription states
that the gate which it adorns was built and restored
by ‘the Imdm Abu-1-' Abbis Ahmad An-Nd§ir-li-
Din-Allah, .... and the termination of the work
was in the year 618,’ that is to say A.D. 1221.
It is said that this gateway was in former times
known as the White Gate, and it is at the
present day walled up, having been closed since
A.D. 1638, when Sultan Murid IV, the Turkish

u 2

292 Baghdad during the Caliphate [eg.

conqueror of Baghdad, entered in triumph through
its portals h

Near the yalbah Gate was the belvedere called
the Manzarat-al-yalbah, which is described as stand-
ing at the further end of the market which traversed
the Mamhnlyah Quarter. The word HaW'ah signi-
fies ‘a racecourse’ or ‘hippodrome/ and outside
this gate, before the city wall had been built, was
the place commonly used for playing the game of
Suljdn or polo. When the Saljfik Sultan Mdlik
Sh^h visited Baghdad in the year 479 (a.d. 1086),
the chronicle mentions that he rode from his palace
of the Dir-al-Mamlakat to this part of the town,
and played polo here in the early part of the day on
which he made his state visit to the Caliph Muktadi.

Not far from the yalbah Gate, and to the south-
east, was the Kati'at-al-'Ajam (the Persian Fief),
near which was the great bastion in the wall, so
often mentioned during the Mongol siege under
the name of the Burj-al-'Ajami (the Persian Tower).
It was against this point that Hfiligfi directed the
storming party to make their main attack, and
Baghdad fell when the 'Ajaml Tower had been
taken. Although apparently the name has now
gone out of all memory, there can be no doubt that
the ancient Burj-al-' Ajaml is the present great corner
bastion at the eastern angle of the city wall, now
known as the Angle Bastion (TcLbiyah-az-Zawlyah).
In the accounts of the siege the Persian Tower
is described as lying between the IJalbah and the
Kalwidhi Gates, and the ]^ati'at-al-‘Ajaml (the

^ Niebuhr, ii. 240; Rawlinson, EncycL BrtL, s.v. Baghdad % Ker
Porter, ii. 263 ; Jones, 309. Tavernier (i. 239), who was in Baghdad
in 1652, names it ‘la Porte Murde.’

^xi.] Quarters East and South of Palaces 293

Persian Fief) would thus have occupied the space
within this angle of the city wall. The Persian Fief
gave its name to the I^ati'ah Quarter, which was
one of those built by the Caliph Mu^tadi ; and in
the seventh century (the thirteenth a. d.) it is
described by YlLkAt as being a suburb that was
like a separate hamlet, while contiguous to it and
towards the MamAniyah lay another quarter called
the Rayydn, which the same authority mentions as
one of the most populous to be seen in his day
in East Baghdad.

In the account of the city wall given by I bn
Jubayr in 581 (a.d. 1185), the gate which opened
to the south near the Tigris bank is called the
Bib-al-Basallyah, and the Ba§aliyah Quarter is one
of those mentioned in Ydkht as having been built
by the Caliph Mu^tadi in this part of the city. The
name of the Bi,b-al-Basaliyah, it is true, does not
occur in either Ydkht or in the Persian accounts of
the Mongol siege; but the Kalwidhd Gate, which
Ydkht expressly states lay contiguous to the Basa-
liyah Quarter, is frequentiy referred to, and since
no B^lb Kalwddhi is mentioned by Ibn Jubayr, it
may be safely assumed that his Basallyah Gate,
opening in the direction of the Kalw^ldhS. township,
is identical with the gate afterwards known as the
Bib Kalwidhi. One of the Mongol generals had
his headquarters before the Kalwidhi Gate during
the great siege, and it was here, after Baghdad had
fallen, that Musta'sim, the last of the Abbasid
Caliphs, was brought out and made to stand as a
suppliant in the presence of Hhligi, in whose camp
not far from this gate the Caliph subsequently met
his death.

294 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch ^

This Ba§altyah or Kalwcldhi Gate is evidently
the one which I^amd-Allah, writing in the middle
of the eighth century (the fourteenth a. d.) and
eighty years after the Mongol siege, calls the Bib-
al-Khuluj, which may mean the Gate of the Canals
(plural of Khaltj)y but the reading is uncertain, and
the name unfortunately does not appear to be
mentioned by any other authority At the present
day this gate is known as the Bdb-ash-Sharki (the
Eastern Gate), but in the last century, when Niebuhr
in 1 750 visited Baghdad, it was known, he reports,
under the Turkish name of the Karolog I^api,
probably a corruption of Karinlik-Kapi, meaning
the Gate of Darkness ^ but this name also has
apparently now fallen out of use. The name of
the Bdb Kalwddh 4 frequently occurs in the chronicle
of Ibn-al-Athir. During the troubles of the year
535 (a.d. 1141), the Caliph Muhammad Muktaft

^ The printed text of the Nuzhat, p. 147, also the lithographed
edition, p. 135, both give Bdb Khalaj^ without vowels, and omitting
the article. The MSS. of the British Museum give the readings
Bdh^aUKhalah and Bdb-aUKhalct (the last with *ayn in place of final
jhri) ; the Paris MSS. give Bdb-al-Khalajy or aUHalaj, or al-Khalah,
The reading Khuluj (in the plural) is only tentative, because this at
any rate gives a meaning, but it is to be noted that KkaJ^j\ though the
common word for a canal in Egypt and the west, does not appear to
be commonly used in this sense in Mesopotamia, where the term
Nahr is always employed both for a river and a canal. Possibly, if
the true reading be Khalaj^ the appellation may be taken firom the
well-known Turk tribe of that name, whom Istakhri (p. 245) has
described, and who at a later time (a.d. 1290 to 1320), under the name
of the Khiljt Sultans, became the second Muslim dynasty of India
who ruled at Dehli, It must be noted, however, that there is no
historical evidence connecting the Khalaj Turks with any gate of
Baghdad,

^ I owe this explanation to Professor E. G. Browne. Tavernier
(i. 239) speaks of it in 1652 as the ‘ Cara Capi, la porte noire,^ which
confirms the above etymology.

^xi.] Quarters East and South of Palaces 295

caused both this and the Zafariyah Gate to be
temporarily blocked up; and in the account of the
inundation of the year 604 (a.d. 1208), it is stated
that the suburb round this gate came to be much
imperilled by the overflow of the ditch outside the
city wail, on which occasion the Caliph Ndsir caused
the mouth of the said ditch on the Tigris to be
closed by a temporary dam, which should prevent
the influx of the river water.

Kalw^dh^, it will be remembered, was an im-
portant township on the eastern Tigris bank, about
a league below Baghdad, the site of which is oc-
cupied by the modem village of Gerdrah. Ibn
Hawkal, as early as the year 367 (a.d. 978), relates
that though Kalwidh^ had a Friday mosque of its
own, and was therefore to be considered as a
separate township, it might almost be counted as
forming part of Baghdad, for in his day the houses
were continuous along the river bank from below
the Palaces of the Caliph to KalwadhU. Near where
the Kalwddha Gate came to be built in later days,
there had stood a Kiosk belonging to the pleasure-
loving Caliph Amin, outside which, in the year 198
(a.d. 814), was encamped one part of the army
then besieging Baghdad in the name of the Caliph
Mamhn. At the date in question the later Palaces
of the Caliphs (in East Baghdad) were represented
by the single palace of the Kasr JaTari only, begun
by Ja'far the Barmecide in the reign of Hirhn-ar-
Rashid, and Amin had, later on built himself this
pleasure-house in the adjacent Rakkah or swamp
of KalwidhA. This place came to be known as
the Kasr Rakkah Kalwddhd, and it was to reach
his new Kiosk from the west bank that Amin

296 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .^

laid down the Zandaward Bridge of Boats which has
been mentioned in chapter xiii \

Ibn Jubayr, in the year 580 (a.d. 1184), after
describing the town wall with its four gates, adds
that besides these there were many other gates
within the city, built for shutting off the various
market streets and quarters. One of the chief of
these inner gateways was the Bib-al-Azaj (the Gate
of the Portico or Gallery), standing in the southern
part of the Mamhniyah Quarter. Although the
exact position of the Azaj Gate in relation to the
Gate of Degrees in the palace wall and the Basa-
Ityah Gate of the town wall is not given, it must
have stood within this last, and it gave its name
to the surrounding quarter. The Bib-al-Azaj is
frequently mentioned by both Ydkht and Ibn-al-
Athir in connexion with the Nizimiyah College, the
Tutushl Hospital, and the various suburbs adjacent
to the Mamhnlyah, namely the Quarter of the Persian
Fief, the Mayddn, the two Mas'hdah Quarters, the
Rayydn, and the Dayr-az-Zandaward. The Quarter
of the Bib-al-Azaj was on three occasions partly
burnt down, namely in the years 440, 467, and 551
(a.d. 1048, 1075, and 1156), and the fire in most
cases extended to the neighbouring Mamfiniyah
Suburb.

Near the Bib-al-Azaj lay the ‘garden’ or quarter
known as the Karih Juhayr, and also in this neigh-
bourhood stood the old convent called the Dayr-az-
Zandaward, this Zandaward having been originally

1 Yakut, i. 6ss, 807; ii. 884; iv. 142, 665 ; Marasid, i. 314; iii. 33;
Rashid-ad-Din, 282, 298, 300; Ibn-al-Athir, x. 103, 156; xi. 51 ; xii.
184; Abu-l-Faraj, 474, 475; Ibn Hawkal, 165; Tabari, iii. 868, 951;
Jones, 310.

^xi.] Quarters East and South of Palaces 297

a canal of the Kalwidhi district, which also gave
its name to the Bridge of Boats mentioned in a
preceding paragraph. The convent has already
been referred to in chapter xv, and its gardens
were celebrated in the time of Yiklit for the oranges
and grapes grown here, the latter being reported
to have been the finest of all the districts round
Baghdad. The MaydSn Quarter, which gave its
name to one of the neighbouring Palaces of the
Caliph in the Harim called the Kasr Maydin Khilis,
lay close to the Azaj Gate ; the quarter may have
received its name from the Maydin or square
originally laid out near this by the Caliph Mamfin
when he rebuilt the Palace of the yasant, as de-
scribed in chapter xviii, but nothing else is recorded
of it. In this same neighbourhood stood the two
small Quarters both called Al-Mas'fidah, after a slave-
girl of that name,, who was of the household of the
Caliph Mamfin. One of these Mas'fidah Quarters
was within the Mamfiniyah, while the other, through
which passed the thoroughfare called the Darb-al-
Mas'fid, stood on part of the endowed lands ('Akdr)
belonging to the Nizimiyah College. Adjacent to
this was the Kurayyah Quarter of East Baghdad
(the Kurayyah of West Baghdad has been described
in chapter vi), which is mentioned by Ydkfit as
lying near the Palaces of the Caliphs K

The celebrated College of the Nizimtyah was
named after its founder Nizim-al-Mulk — Wazir in
turn of the two Saljfik princes Alp Arslin and Milik

‘ Yakut, i. 232, 476, 826 ; ii. 598, 665 ; iv. 122, 398, 528, 714 ;
Marasid, i. 314, 431, 319; ii. 97, 393, 433 j Ibn-al-Athir, ix. 376; x.
67 ; xi. 143. Khatib, folio 107 b, for Zandaward gives Zandar&d, and
the Paris MSS. confirm this reading, which Wustenfeld also cites as
an alternative from other MSS. of Yakut (v. 198).

298 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.,

Shih, also the friend and patron of the astronomer-
poet Omar Khayyim. The college was founded
in 457 (a.d. 1065), and opened two years later,
being especially established for the teaching of the
Shifi'ite school of law. Among its more celebrated
lecturers was the great theologian Ghazzill and
Bahcl-ad-Din (better known with us as Bohadin the
biographer of the Saladin), who was under-lecturer
during four years in the Nizimiyah. Close to the
Nizimiyah was another college called the Bah^tyah,
near which again stood the hospital called the
Bimdristan Tutushi, opening on the market called
the Shk Tutush, which went from the Nizimiyah
to the Azaj Gate. This hospital and market were
built by Khamartakin, who had originally been the
slave of Tcij-ad-Dawlah Tutush,' one of the sons
of the Saljhk Sultan Alp Arslin, and he died in the
year 508 (a.d. 1114). A century later, in the time of
Yikht, all these buildings were still in good repair,
and from numerous incidental notices it seems clear
that the Nizelmiyah College stood between the B4b-
al-Azaj aCnd the Tigris bank, not very far from the
Basaltyah Gate of the town wall, and on the road
leading to this gateway from the Gate of Degrees
in the wall round the Palaces of the Caliphs.

The traveller I bn Jubayr attended prayers in the
Niz^iyah on the first Friday after his arrival in
Baghdad; this was in the year 581 (a.d. 1185), and
he describes it as the most splendid of the thirty
and odd colleges which then adorned the city of
East Baghdad. Already in 504 (a.d. 1110), and
only a score of years after the death of Nizim-al-
Mulk, this college had been thoroughly repaired.
Ibn Jubayr further reports that in his day the

,^xi.] Quarters East and South of Palaces 299

endowments derived from domains and rents be-
longing to the college amply sufficed Both to pay
the stipends of professors and to keep the building
in good order, besides supplying an extra fund for
the sustenance of poor scholars. The S<ik or market
of the'Ni2S.miyah was one of the great thorough-
fares of this quarter, and it is described as lying
adjacent to the Mashra'ah or wharf, which proves
that the college must have stood near the Tigris
bank. Opposite to this, on the western bank of the
river, in the Karkh Quarter lay the Kurayyah
suburb of West Baghdad, which, as has already
been pointed out, must not be confused with the
other I^urayyah suburb adjacent to the Nizimlyah.

When Ibn BatQtah visited Baghdad in 727 (a.d.
1327), namely three-quarters of a century after the
Mongol sjege, the NizS.mlyah College was still
standing and in good repair. He describes it as
situated in the middle of the great market street
of East Baghdad, then generally known as the
Tuesday Market (Shk-ath-Thaldthah), near the upper
end of which stood the Mustansiiiyah College, as
described in a preceding chapter. This long street
must have followed a serpentine course round the
ruined wall of the Palaces of the Caliphs, going up
from the KalwMhi Gate on the south, to the Bib-
as-Sultdn on the north-west, where the original
Tuesday Market had stood in the days of Ibn
Serapion. Writing a dozen years later than Ibn
Bathtah, Hamd-Allah, the Persian historian, briefly
alludes to the Nizimiyah, which he calls ‘ the mother
of the Madrasahs’ in Baghdad. This proves that
down to the middle of the fourteenth century a.d.
the college was still standing, though at the present

300 Baghdad during the CaltpHaie

time -ilJ vestiges of it have disappeared, as indeed
appeals already to have been the case in the middle
of the last century, for Niebuhr found no traces of
the Nizdmiyah to describe in his painstaking account
of the ruins in the city of Caliphs, as these still
existed at the time of his visit ^ •

^ Ibn Khallikan, No. 410, p. ; No. 599, p. 114 ; No. 603, p. 119 ;
No. 852, p. 131; Ibn Jubayr, 220, 231; Yakut, i. 826; iv. 85; Ibn
Batutah, ii. io8 ; Nuzhat, 148 ; Ibn-al-Athir, x. 38.

CHAPTER XXII

RECAPITULATION AND AUTHORITIES : EARLY PERIOD

Five periods of Abbasid History. The First Period begins. Tabari
and the first siege of Baghdad. Growth of Western and of Eastern
Baghdad. Civil war between Amin and Mamfin. Baghdad besieged
by Tihir and Harthamah. Death of Amin; Mamfin in Baghdad.
Mu tasim removes to Simarri. The Second Period begins. The
second siege of Baghdad under Musta'in. City walls built Baghdad
again the Capital. Yakfibi and Ibn Serapion. The first systematic
description of the city. Mas*fidi and his history called The Golden
Meadows,

I PROPOSE in these concluding chapters to sum up
in chronologfical order the topographical information
which has been set out in detail in the preceding
pages, and the occasion may serve to name in turn
the authors to whose writings we are indebted for
the knowledge that has enabled us to reconstruct
the plan of mediaeval Baghdad \ From its founda-
tion by the Caliph Mansllr to its capture by HCtligA
the Mongol, the history of the city is that of the
Abbasid Caliphate, and the events accompanying its
rise and fall will perhaps be better understood if the
five centuries that elapsed during this long period
be divided into five rather unequal parts, repre-

^ References to authorities are, for the most part, now omitted, these
having been fully given in the previous chapters.

302 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

senting, as it were, so many acts in the great drama
of the history of Islam.

These five divisions are: — (i) the period of the
great Caliphs, from the foundation of the dynasty in
132 (a.d. 750) to the death of Mamfin in 218 (a.d.
833) >■ (2) the period during the tyranny of the
Turkish body-g^ard, ending in 334 (a.d. 946), when
Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah the Buyid prince became master in
Baghdad ; (3) the period of the Buyid supremacy ;

(4) followed by the Saljfik supremacy, beginning
with Tughril Beg, who entered Baghdad in 447
(a.d. 1055), 3.nd ending with the death of Sultan
Sanj ir, the last of the great Saljfiks in 5 5 2 (a. D. 1157);

(5) lastly, the period of decline and fall, which ended
with the Mongol conquest, the sack of Baghdad in
656 (a.d. 1258), and the death of the last Abbasid
Caliph Musta'§im^.

In so far as the history of Baghdad itself is
concerned, the first period of course only starts with
the date of the foundation of the Round City by the
Caliph Mansfir, namely about the year 145 (a.d. 762),
closing with the death of Mamfin, as already said,
or in other words, the period begins with the reign
of the grandfather of H^rfin-ar-Rashid, and ends
with the Ufa of the second of his sons who attained
the Caliphate. These seventy and odd years form
the most brilliant epoch of Moslem history; the
Caliphs were then great warriors and sovereigns,
and the fact is significant that, with the sole excep-
tion of Amin, no Caliph during this period died in
Baghdad. Their tombs lie scattered over the length
and breadth of the empire® — from the pilgrim road

^ See the Chronological Table given before chapter i.
® See note ^ to p. 194,

^xxii.] Recapitulation : Early Period 303

near Mecca to Ttis in Khuriseln, or the gate of
Tarsus in the north-west — for the burial-place of
the Caliph was where he had died, on the road, so
to speak, journeying in the affairs of Islam.

For this first period we have unfortunately
no written contemporary authorities, but for the
topography of Baghdad an event of much impor-
tance is the first siege of the capital in the year 198
(a.d. 814), when (as will be remembered) Amin,
son of Hdrhn-ar-Rashid, defended himself during
eighteen months against the generals of his brother
Mamhn. The detailed narrative of this siege, taken
down from the accounts of eye-witnesses and re-
duced to system, has been transmitted to us in the
pages of the great chronicle of Tabari. In this
the incidental mention of places attacked or defended
during the siege operations enables us to fix the
position of many point*" left vague in the two great
systematic descriptions of Baghdad which belong
to the following century, composed respectively by
Ya'khbl and I bn Serapion,. from whose writings,
chiefly, the plan has been reconstructed.

It will be remembered that Baghdad as founded
by Manstir was a circular city or burg four miles
in circumference, having four equidistant gates with
a triple wall, which in concentric circles enclosed
the great palace and mosque of the Caliph standing
in the middle of the wide central area. Before
the death of Manslir in 158 (a.d. 775), however, the
city had already spread far beyond these modest
limits. Suburbs had grown up along the highroads
starting from each of the four gates, and these
suburbs, together with East Baghdad or Rusdfah,
founded at almost the same time as the Round

304 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ chj ^

City, but on the other bank of the Tigris, covered
ground measuring five miles across in length and in
breadth.

Thus, beginning at the Basrah or south-eastern
gate of the Round City, one highroad went down-
stream along the river bank, having the Sbarkiyah
Quarter on the one hand near the Tigris, and the
great Karkh Quarter on the other side, inland ; and
this last with its markets is described as stretching
for nearly two leagues southward of Baghdad. The
Karkh Quarter on the side furthest from the river
was bordered by the highroad running south, which
was the Pilgrim Way leading to Mecca. This was
known as the Kfifah Road (from the city of that
name where the Euphrates was crossed), and this
highway started from the bifurcation outside the
Kfifah Gate at the south-western part of the Round
City. Beyond the square at this gate two high-
roads began, namely the Kfifah Road south, bor-
dering Karkh as just described, and the Muhawwal
Road west, passing through the town of Muhawwal
on the *lsi Canal to the city of AnbS.r on the
Euphrates. From the Syrian Gate, in the north-
western part of the Round City, a thoroughfare
also went westward, called the Anbir Road, which
passing first through the IJarbiyah suburb to the
Anbir Gate, and there crossing the bridge over the
Trench of Tihir, finally struck into the Muhawwal
Road at a point beyond Muliawwal town, having
thus far kept along the northern bank of the 'Isi
Canal.

Beyond the suburb at the Ktifah Gate, and lying
westward of the Round City, were the various
suburbs of the Muhawwal Gate on the highroad

rfcxii,] Recapitulation : Early Period

305

to the town of that name ; while north of the
Gate stretched the Idarb Quarter or the Harbiyah,
occupying all the ground upstream above the Round
City; beyond which, again, began the cemeteries
afterwards known as the Kizimayn. Outside the
north-eastern or Khurisdn Gate of the Round
City, the Caliph Manshr had built his palace, called
the Khuld, lying to the right or south of the road
leading to the Main Bridge of Boats across the
Tigris ; and on the further side of the river stood
the palace and suburb of Rusifah. This lay to the
northward of the bridge end, and it had the Sham-
misiyah Quarter beyond it eastward, stretching from
the river bank opposite the Harbiyah Quarter to the
gate of East Baghdad opening on the Persian high-
road, which was called the Khurisdn Gate of the
Eastern City, while to the south of the Main Bridge
lay the Mukharrim Quarter.

During the reign of Mahdt, son and successor of
Mansdr, Rusifah grew to rival West Baghdad in the
extent and magnificence of its various palaces and
market streets. Round the palace and mosque
which Mahdt had built, his attendants and their
followers received grants of lands, and just as the
Round City had come to be encompassed by the
suburbs in which stood the fiefs of the nobles
belonging to the court of Mansfir, so Rusifah
during the eleven years’ reign of Mahdt became the
centre of a town of palaces built by the next
generation of courtiers. In the year 170 (a.d. 786),
when the reign of Hirfin-ar- Rashid began, the three
eastern quarters of Rusifah, the Shammistyah, and
Mukharrim, formed nearly as great a city on the
east side of the Tigris as did the city of Manstir with

BAGHDAD

X

3 o 6 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch..

its suburbs on the west side. The Caliph still
lived in the Khuld Palace, and nominally the Diwdns
or offices of government were in the Round City;
but his Wa^ir Ja'far the Barmecide had built himself
a palace on the eastern Tigris bank below the
Mukharrim Quarter (which palace subsequently
formed the nucleus of the later palaces of the
Caliphs), and much of the business of state was
now transacted in Eastern Baghdad under the
supervision of Ja'far.

The fall of the Barmecides shed a gloom over
the later years of the reign of Hirhn-ar-Rashfd,
and after the death of the great CaJiph, the rivalry
which had ever existed between his two sons —
Amin, whose mother was the Abbasid Princess
Zubaydah, and Mamfin, the son of a Persian bond-
woman — promptly flamed up into civil war. The
Caliphate belonged by right of birth to Amin, but
H^rlln had named Mamhn next in the succession,
and meanwhile had made him governor for life
of KhuriscLn and the whole eastern half of the
empire. On the death of his' father Amin had
succeeded peaceably to the throne, and at first
remained inactive at Baghdad, but before long he
precipitated the inevitable crisis by naming his own
son Mfisi heir-apparent, thus attempting to deprive
Matnvln of the succession. Mamfln promptly took
up arms in defence of his rights, and causing his
brother Amin to be solemnly deposed in all the
mosques of Persia, Syria, and Arabia, where the
governors were all partisans of Mamlin, his armies
advanced through Persia on Lower Mesopotamia for
the siege of Baghdad.

Amin meanwhile having lost all power even in

,xxii.] Recapitulation : Early Period 307

'Irelk, had shut himself up in the-capital, and Mamun,
who preferred to remain safely in far-off Khur&sin,
had given the command of the invading force to
two of his generals, namely Harthamah, who was
to attack Baghdad from the east, and Tihir (subse-
quently founder of the Tihirid dynasty of Khurisin),
who, crossing the Tigris at Mad^in (Ctesiphon) into
Lower Mesopotamia, was to march up the great
Kiifah road and thus invest the city from the
western side. The accounts in Tabari name the
exact positions of the troops. Harthamah, on
the eastern side, after defeating the army which
Amin had sent to oppose him at Nahrawdn, estab-
lished his headquarters on the hither side of the
canal called the Nahr Bin, probably near the spot
where the Palace of the Pleiades was afterwards
built, and there fortified his camp with a wall and a
ditch. His right wing was before the ShammcLsiyah
Gate on the river bank above the city, while his left
wing occupied a pleasure palace lately built by Amin
in the plain or Rakkah of KalwidH below the city.
At this date Eastern Baghdad had no town wall, but
the townspeople built barricades to block the roads
at their exit from the city, and from gate to gate the
line of houses and garden walls served as the outer
line of defence.

On the western side T^Lhir established his head-
quarters in the garden outside the Anbir Gate,
where the Anbir Bridge crossed the Trench that
went by his name, and he forthwith began his attack
on the outlying suburbs of this side. The houses
in the Harbiyah Quarter were in great part destroyed
by his catapults (Manjanlk), and the ruin effected is
described as extending from the Tigris bank at the

3 o 8 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch. •

Baghtyln Quarter round past the Sjnrian Gate to the
Khfah Gate and the line of the Sarit Canal. Fire
completed the destruction begun by the catapults,
the great mills at the junction of the two $arit Canals
were in part destroyed, and all the suburbs from the
Quarter of Ijlumayd along the Karkhdyi Canal are
stated to have been laid in ruins. The siege dragged
on from month to month, and the inhabitants of the
city meanwhile suffered horribly. The Princess
Zubaydah, widow of Hirhn-ar-Rashtd, was driven
out of her palace in the fief near the Ifafarabbul
Gate, and joined her son 'in the Round City, which,
with the Khuld Palace and the suburbs to the south
along the river bank, became the last refuge of Amin
and the garrison.

Little by little the line hemming them in was
drawn tighter, and all attempts to break through
failed. A great fight took place in the Kunisah
Quarter, and the garrison attempted a sally in the
neighbourhood of the Darb-al-Idijirah (the Street
of Rocks), beyond the Muhawwal Gate, on which
occasion Tihir came near to lose his life, but the
besieged, after performing prodigies of valour, were
again driven back. In order to facilitate the dispatch
of reinforcements to and from the army under
Harthamah on the eastern river bank, T4hir had
moored a new bridge of boats across the Tigris
above Baghdad. He now ordered a general attack
to be made by Harthamah on the east side, and here,
when the Khurisin Gate had been stormed, the
besiegers soon gained possession of the whole of
East Baghdad. The siege had begun before the end
of the year 196 A. H., and it was in the beginning of
198 that Harthamah having thus become master of

, xxn.] Recapitulation : Early Period 309

Rusifah, the Shammdsiyah, and Mukharrim — the
three quarters forming that half of the city which
lay on the Persian side of the Tigris — proceeded to
cut the Main Bridge of Boats, and thus isolate the
Round City and its defenders.

Meanwhile in Western Baghdad, when it was seen
that the defence was failing, the merchants had begun
to parley, and the troops of Amin were ever deserting
iii increasing numbers. Tihir could now occupy the
quarters on the southern side of the Round City,
namely the Sharki3^h, with Karkh and its great
markets ; further, he had succeeded in destroying the
two masonry bridges — the Old Bridge and the New
— over the §ar^lt Canal, by which the highroads
from the Khfah and Basrah Gates passed out
into the suburbs. The unfortunate Caliph Amin
now retired, with his mother Zubaydah, to the
Palace of the Golden Gate in the Round City,
egress to the Tigris being still preserved through
the Khuld Palace and its gardens ; but here the
river bank was already commanded by the catapults
of Harthamah, whose troops had occupied the whole
eastern side, and T^^ir was closely investing the
walls of the Round City. His lines, we are told,
ran from the Tigris at the foot of the Khuld
Gardens, up the $ar&t Canal past the Basrah Gate
to the KAfah Gate, and thence turned north back
to the river, after blocking the Syrian Gate, the
Tigris bank being regained immediately alcove the
Khuld Palace.

The end could not long be delayed. The Khuld
Palace on the river had to be deserted by its
garrison, becoming untenable from the shower of
stones shot by catapults which Harthamah had

310 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .

planted in the Mukharrim Quarter; whereupon Amin,
with his mother and those few troops who still stood
by him, retired within the ruined city of Mansdr,
shutting himself up in the Central Palace of the
Golden Gate. Before long, this too becoming un-
tenable, Amin, driven to surrender and fearing
Harthamah less than Tdhir, set out in secret, and
embarked, to cross the river to the camp of the
besiegers on the east side. By ill chance, or
through treachery, the boat was overturned, and the
luckless Amin, after swimming back to the western
bank for shelter, was taken prisoner by the enemy’s
troops, and forthwith put to death in the garden
near the Anbir Gate by order of Tdhir, that general
sending the head of the deposed Caliph to Marndn
in Khurdsdn as a proof that the war was now really
at an end

The reign of Mdmun, who some months after
these events arrived in Baghdad, witnessed the
rebuilding of the half-ruined capital. The Round
City, however, would appear never to have recovered
from the effects of the siege, and Mamiin, when
resident in Baghdad, for the most part liVed in the
Barmecide Palace below the Mukharrirh Quarter
on the east bank, which (as described in chapter
xviii), after having been greatly enlarged by the
Wazir yasan Ibn Sahl, was subsequently known
as the Idasan! Palace. On the death pf Mamhn
and the accession of his brother Mu'tasiipi, the riots
caused by the Turkish body-guard ultimately forced
that Caliph to betake himself to S^iparrd, which
now became the capital of the Caliphate. Here
Mu'tasim, and after his death six Caliphs in turn,

^ The details of the first siege will be found in Tabari, iii. 864 to 925.

XXII.] Recapitulation : Early Period 31 1

reigned and built palaces, while successive captains
of the guard controlled the affairs of the empire at
their pleasure. This was the second period in the
history of the Abbasids, namely that of the long
tyranny of the Turkish guard, which only came
to an •end with the advent of the Buy id princes.
While the Caliphs thus lived at Sdmarrel, Baghdad
was under the rule of governors, for the most part
Tdhirids, for ip^hir, after bringing Amin to his
death, had prudently retired from court to live as
a semi-independent prince in Khurisdn, and during
this period, when the Caliphs were the puppets of
the body-guard in Sdmarri, diverse members of his
family in succession occupied the chief provincial
governorships throughout the Abbasid dominions.

The period of fifty-eight years, during which the
Caliphate had its seat at Simarr^, was interrupted
in 251 (a. d. 865) by the episode of the flight to
Baghdad of the Caliph Musta'in, who made the
attempt, unsuccessfully, thus to escape from the
tyranny of the Turkish guard. Then followed the
second siege of Baghdad, of about a year’s duration,
by an army dispatched from Sdmarri in the name
of a cousin, the rival Caliph Mu'tazz, whom the
captain of the guard had set up in the place of
Musta'in. During this second siege Baghdad was
defended by Muhammad ibn 'Abd-Allah, a grand-
son of X^hir who had besieged the city rather more
than half a centur}' before ; but it was Rusdfah or
East Baghdad that now became the headquarters
of the defence, not West Baghdad with the Round
City, as had been the case in the time of Amin.
For the details of this siege, also, we are indebted
to the pages of Tabari, who possibly himself

312

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .^

witnessed some of the incidents that he describes,
since he must have been nearly thirty years of age
at the date in question.

As soon as Musta'in had safely reached Ru§S.fah,
he ordered the governor, Muliammad the Tihirid,
to block the roads coming in from Sclmarri by
cutting the dykes of the canals above Baghdad, and
he next set to work to surround both the eastern
city and the western with walls. As already said,
the Caliph fixed his headquarters in Ru§dfah, and
on the east side the new wall began at the Sham-
mlisiyah Gate on the Tigris bank above the Palace
of Mahdi. Sweeping round through a quarter-circle,
by the Baraddn Gate to the Khurisin Gate at the
exit of the highroad to Persia and the east, the
wall thus enclosed the Rusifah and Shammdsiyah
Quarters ; then curving back through another quarter-
circle, it included the Mukharrim Quarter and came
to the Tigris again at the Gate of the Tuesday
Market. In West Baghdad the wall began above
at the Gate of the Fief of Zubaydah, thus including
the Upper Harbour, and passing to the Ka^rabbul
Gate followed up the line of the Trench of T^lhir,
probably as far as the Anbdr Gate, for this and the
BSb-al-Hadid (the Iron Gate) are especially mentioned
during the siege operations. From the Trench the
wall curved down in a great semicircle, enclosing
the City of Man§ur and part of Karkh, until it
joined the Tigris again beyond the Basrah Gate,
below where the Satclt Canal had its outflow at the
Palace of Humayd. The exact line followed by
the wall between the upper part of the Tihirid
Trench and the Palace of Humayd is not given,
but it probably followed the line of one of the

^sxn.] Recapitidation : Early Period 313

Karkh canals, and we are told that a ditch was dug
outside the wall wheresoever no canal already existed.
The total cost of these fortifications is reported to
have amounted to 330,000 dinars or gold pieces, a
sum equivalent to about ;^i 60,000.

The* main attack on the part of the besieging
troops was from the north, being directed against the
Shammdsiyah Gate on the east side, and opposite
this on the west bank, against the Katrabbul Gate.
Further Tabari mentions that along the wall of the
Fief of Zubaydah and the Trench the defenders
greatly harassed their opponents by stones from the
Manjaniks or catapults erected over various other
gateways. After many months’ blockade and several
battles, a general assault was finally ordered by the
SSmarri captains, and all down the line, from the
Ydsiriyah Quarter and the Anbdr Gate on the westi
to the Khurdsdn Gate at the eastern extremity of
the Shammdsiyah Quarter, a stubborn defence was
made, until the U pper Bridge of Boats having been
set on fire, the outer defences were at length carried.
The end followed rapidly. Musta'in, being driven out
of Rusdfah, became a prisoner, and was forced to
abdicate ; before long he met his death at the hands
of his captors, and the Turkish guard thereupon
returned victorious to their nominal sovereign
Mu'tazz in Sdmarrdb

It has been pointed out that the ruin of Western
Baghdad, and especially of the Round City, had
resulted from the first siege in the time of Amin;
it may be added that the three northern quarters
of East Baghdad (Rusifah, Shammisiyah, and Mu-

^ The details of the second siege are given in Tabari, iii. 1553 to
iSA

314 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch^

kharrim) only in part ever recovered the effects of
this second siege, which had resulted in the death
of Musta'in. The Turkish body-guard had for the
time triumphed, but before another thirty years had
elapsed events occurred which caused S^marri to
be deserted by the Caliphs, and Mu'tadid (nephew
of Mu'tazz), who succeeded to the throne in 279
(a. D. 892), permanently re-established the Caliphate
in the older capital. Settling in East Baghdad, he
laid the foundations of the great complex of palaces
which stood on the Tigris bank below the Mu-
kharrim Quarter, forming the Idarim or Precinct,
■which was afterwards known as the D&r-al-Khilifah
(the Abode of the Caliphate). These Precincts
ultimately became the nucleus of the later city, which
in time developed from the line of suburbs that
spread round the land side of the great palaces.
This new town was walled in at a subsequent date,
and at the present time still exists, on the east bank
of the Tigris, as the modern city of Baghdad.

It is to the writers who flourished during the last
quarter of the third century (the ninth a.d.), namely
Ya'khbi, Ibn Rustah, and Ibn Serapion, that we
owe our first, and indeed our only systematic de-
scriptions of Baghdad. Yakfibi begins by the Round
City as it was originally founded in the reign of
Mansfir, and then passes on to a detailed account
of its suburbs, concluding with a brief notice of the
three eastern quarters of Ru§ 3 .fah, Shammisiyah,
and Mukharrim. The description of the canals given
by our next authority, Ibn Serapion, supplements
Ya'khbt, enabling us to plot out his topography,
and Ibn Rustah adds some few additional details,
but the critical examination of these three authorities

^cxii.] Recapitulation : Early Period 315

need not detain us now, since having formed the
basis of matters discussed in earlier chapters of
the present work, their accounts have already been
fully reviewed. Points of detail are in many in-
stances supplemented by incidental notices, under
the vanous years, occurring in the volumes of the
great chronicle of Tabari already mentioned, and thus
the earlier descriptions can be filled in and confirmed.

A matter that must be noted in connexion with
these and the following accounts of Baghdad, is
the curiously arbitrary way in which the Arab geo-
graphers for the most part speak of the position
of the City of Man§fir in relation to the points of
the compass, and to the system of canals and roads
that surrounded it They assumed that the Tigris
held its course entirely from west to east, and hence
lay to the north of the City of Mansfir ; further, that
the SarAt Canal (coming from the Euphrates) ran
in a direction from south to north before flowing out
into the Tigris, and thus passed to the east of the
Round City. On these suppositions, which a glance
at the map will show only can agree very partially
with the facts of the case, all the topographical
descriptions are based. Thus the BAdurAyi. district
is invariably spoken of as lying east of the $arAt,
while the district of Ratrabbul was to the west of
this stream; we, on the other hand, should rather
have said that these districts (respectively below
and above the Round City) lay to the south and
north of the SarAt. Again, Ya'kAbl in describing
the suburbs near the Mu^iawwal Gate states that
along the $arAt, going upstream south (we should
siy ty^yjf), there are certain fiefs lying to Ae westward
(we should sa^ north) of this canal. And Ithe City

3 i 6 Baghdad during the Caliphate

of Mans<ir as a whole was considered by him to
have occupied its western bank. This arbitrary view
of the matter, in regard to the main points of the
compass, must account for the reference made by
Mas'hdi to the Bab-al-Idadid (the Iron Gate) on
Tdhir’s Trench, which he says was a gate of Baghdad
that opened ‘towards the south’; the explanation
being that the Trench here curves away after leaving
the $ardt, and hence the gates along its upper
course were described as opening ‘towards the
south,’ because the Trench, which bifurcated from
the §ardt, was held to flow west before turning
north to flow into the Tigris in a parallel course
with its parent stream ^

To complete the list of our earliest authorities
it remains to be mentioned that, besides his work
on geography (giving us the detailed description of
Baghdad), Ya'ktibi also wrote a history, which he
finished in the year 260 (a.d. 874), and dating from
rather more than half a century later, we have the
celebrated work called The Meadows of Gold by
Mas'6di. From the pages of both these historical
works, as from the chronicle of Tabari already
mentioned, innumerable small details may be gleaned
regarding the topography of Baghdad, which, though
incidental and fragmentary, are often invaluable for
fixing minor points, as may be inferred from the
number of times these authors have been quoted in
the notes of all the earlier chapters of this work.

* Instances are too numerous for reference in full, but the fdllowing
will be bufScient to prove what is , stated above. Ya*kubi, 244 ;
Mukaddasi, 120; Mas'udi, vi. 482; Yakut, i. 640; Marasid, ii. 486.

CHAPTER XXIII

RECAPITULATION AND AUTHORITIES: MIDDLE PERIOD

The building of the Palaces in East Baghdad. The Third Period
begins. The Buyid Supremacy: their Great Palace: the Dyke of
Mu*izz-ad-Dawlah and the Hospital of 'Adud-ad-Dawlah. Istakhri
and Ibn ^lawkal. Mukaddasi. Decline of the Buyids. The Fourth
Period begins. The Saljdks. The History of Baghdad by Khattb.
Area of East and West Baghdad. New Baghdad and the Wall of
Mustazhir: the Saljuk Mosque. The Sieges of Baghdad in the reigns
of Mansdr Rdshid and of Muhammad Muktaft Period of decay : the
Persian poet KhdkHni. Benjamin of Tudela. Ibn Jubayr. Ydkdt,
Many separate walled Quarters. The Mustansiriyah College and the
]^arbi Bridge. Ibn Khallikdn.

The half century which followed on the return
of the Caliphs to Baghdad, and which preceded the
advent of the Buyids, witnessed the building of
the great palaces (including the Mosque of the Caliph)
in the southern part of East Baghdad along the river
bank. These palaces, it will be remembered, lay
immediately to the south of the Gate of the Tuesday
Market in the city wall which Musta'in had built,
and East Baghdad before long was thus almost
doubled in area. During the transition period, the
older wall which went in a semicii'cle round the
three northern quarters of Rus^fah, ShammSslyah,
and Mukharrim, must either have been purposely

3i8 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch^

destroyed, or else allowed to fall to ruin, for the
new quarters, which ultimately sprang up round
the Palaces of the Firdhs, the yasanl, and the Tij,
in part overlapped the Mukharrim. In the early
years of the fourth century (which began a. D. 912),
the~walls of the City of Manshr in West Baghdad
had likewise fallen to complete ruin, as also the two
Palaces of the Golden Gate and the Khuld, the
ground here as time went on being taken up by
the new quarters that came to surround the Ba§rah
Gate and the gate known as the Bib-al-Mu^awwal,
on the great highroad leading west towards Anbir
from the Khfah Gate of the Round City.

The Turk body-guard, since the return of the
Caliphs from Simarri, had lost all power, and in
334 (a. d. 946) the third of the periods into which
it has been found convenient to divide the history
of the Abbasids began, its outset being marked by
the advent of the Buyid Prince Muizz-ad-Dawlah
in Baghdad. The period of the Buyid supremacy
lasted for rather more than a century, and was
characterized by the erection of many fine buildings
in the capital of the Caliphate. The Buyid princes
were Persian by descent and Shi' ah by sympathy ;
they had subjugated both Mesopotamia and the
region now known as Persia, where various members
of the family occupied the provincial governments,
while from this date onward the prince, who was
recognized as head of the house, as a rule made
Baghdad his residence, and from this centre of
authority controlled the Caliph, and in hii&. name
sought to dominate all Eastern Islam. ^

The Buyid princes built their palaces in East
Baghdad (as related in chapter xvii), on the ground

sxiii.] Recapitulation : Middle Period 319

Formerly occupied by the Shammasiyah and part of
the Mukharrim Quarter; and these palaces, which
their successors the Saljhk princes took over and
enlarged, were known by the general name of the
Dir-as-Saltanah (the Abode of the Sultanate). They
were bdgun under Mu'izz-ad-Dawlah, the Buyid who
especially had entitled himself to the lasting gratitude
of the people of Baghdad by erecting the huge
dyke which, when kept in repair, prevented the
inundation of the city by the flooding of the streams
flowing out into the Tigris at the Shammclslyah
lowlands. At a later date, his nephew and suc-
cessor 'Adud-ad-Dawlah built the hospital in West
Baghdad on the ruins of the Khuld Palace, and
this for three centuries was a school of medical
science, which became famous throughout the East
under the name of the Btm^ristin 'Adudl (the
Hospital of 'Adud-ad-Dawlah).

During the century of the Buyid supremacy we
have the first three names in the long list of our
Arab geographers, namely Istakhri, Ibn Hawkal,
and Mukaddasi, each of whom has devoted some
paragraphs of his work to a succinct description of
Baghdad. The geography of Istakhri, who wrote
in 340 (a. D. 951), was re-edited and enlarged by
Ibn Hawkal in 367 (a. d. 978) ; but as regards
Baghdad, the two accounts are practically identical,
except for a very few minor details. Both mention
East Baghdad as almost entirely taken up by the
palaces ; in the first place, by die Palaces of the
Caliph or Harlm (the royal Precincts), these extend-
ing in the southern part with their gardens as far
down as the Nahr Bln, two leagues distant from the
centre of the town ; and secondly, by the Palace of

320 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch .'^

the Buyid Sultan in the upper part of the city —
the walls of these two sets of palaces being described
as rising above the Tigris bank' in a continuous line,
which extended from the Shamm^siyah Quarter
downstream for a distance of about five miles.
Opposite the Shammisiyah of the eastern «de lay
the yarblyah Quarter in West Baghdad, and below
this stood Karkh, which further at this time gave
its name in general parlance to all that half of
Baghdad which lay on the western bank ; East
Baghdad being still known as the Rusifah side, or
as the Quarter of the Bib-at-TSk, from the great
arched gate of this name at the head of the Main
Bridge.

Istakhri mentions three great Friday mosques as
in use at his date, namely the Mosque of Rusifah
and that of the Palace of the Caliph in East
Baghdad, with the old mosque of the City of Mansfir
in West Baghdad ; while Ibn Hawkal (a quarter of
a century later) adds a fourth, which had come into
use by his time, namely the Mosque at Barathd, on
the road to Muhawwal Town, originally a shrine
dedicated to the Caliph 'All, whom the Shi'ahs more
especially hold in honour. In Kalwidhi also, down
the river on the east side, there was at this date
a great mosque which might rightfully be considered
as belonging to Baghdad, seeing that the houses of
the eastern city were continuous from below the
Palaces of the Caliph to this outlying township.
Both Istakhri and Ibn Hawkal — in spite of the
numerous magnificent palaces — especially note and
deplore the ruin which had already befallen many
quarters formerly flourishing; thus Istakhri writes'.,
that all the road between the Main Bridge and the

^xxiii.] Recupitulation : Middle Period

321

eastern Khurisdn Gate had in former days been
occupied by houses, but that in his time these were
for the most part already in ruin.

In Western Baghdad Karkh is said still to be the
most populous and best preserved quarter, and here
the mefchants who lived at the Y^sirlyah suburb had
their houses of business. Istakhri then proceeds to
give a detailed account (copied without acknow-
ledgement by all subsequent authorities) of the 'Isi
Canal flowing through Karkh, which was navigable
for boats from the Euphrates to the Tigris, many
unnavigable branch canals, namely the Sarit and
other minor channels, ramifying throughout the
adjacent quarters. The extreme breadth across
both halves of the city (East and West Baghdad)
Istakhri gives at five miles (the same as the length
given for the palace walls along the eastern river
bank), and his account concludes with the remark
that the gardens of the Palaces of the Caliphs and
others in East Baghdad were almost entirely irri-
gated by water-channels derived from the Nahrawdn
Canals (whose courses have been carefully described
by Ibn Serapion), since, according to Lstakhri, the
Tigris ran at too low a level for its waters to be
brought into these gardens, except by the mechanical
contrivance of the water-wheel, called Dfilhb, which
(says he) involved much labour.

The account of Baghdad written by IVTukaddasi
375 (a.d. 985) is less interesting than might
have been expected from the other portions of his
excellent and original work. He mentions few
topographical details, but after expatiating on the
many advantages of position and climate which
Mansfir garined by selecting this particular site

BAOMDAU Y

322 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch»

for his capital, passes on to lament the present
ruin of the great city, which he fears would soon
rival Selmarr^ in its state of chronic insurrection
and infamous misrule. In Karkh, on the west
bank, he describes the Fief of Rabi' as the most
populous quarter, and states that on this side
were to be found most of the markets and
fine houses spared by the general decay. He
speaks of the hospital lately built by 'Adud-ad-
Dawlah opposite the Bridge of Boats leading to
East Baghdad ; and in this other half of the city
the best preserved quarters were, he says, those
l)dng round the B&b-at-Tdk (the great Arch at the
Bridge-head) and near the Ddr-al-Amir, namely
the Palace of the Buyid Princes recently built
over part of the Shammislyah Quarter.

'Adud-ad-Dawlah had died in Baghdad during
the year 372 (a.d. 982), a short time before Mukad-
dasi wrote this description, and he was buried (as
all good Shi'ahs should be) at Mashhad ‘Alt, the
celebrated shrine on the Euphrates where the grave
of the Caliph ‘Alt was said to have been made.
After the death of 'Adud-ad-Dawlah the Buyid
power declined, and a period of internecine war
followed, which only ended in 447 (a.d. 1055),
when Tughril Beg the Saljfik, after suppressing
the last Buyid prince, became master of Baghdad.
With him begins the period of the Saljfik supremacy
(the fourth period in the history of the Abbasids),
which lasted about a century, and is celebrated for
the . acts and deeds of Alp Arsldn and Mdlik Sh 4 h.
The Saljfiks were of the Turk race (the Buyids had
been Persians), and unlike their predecessors, the
Saljfik princes for the most part did not reside in

•xxiii.] Recapitulation : Middle Period 323

Baghdad, but maintained here a deputy in their
stead. • He acted as their Lieutenant-Governor of
Mesopotamia, and resided permanently at Baghdad,
occupying the Buyid Palace now generally called
the Palace of the Sultan. In other words Baghdad,
during Saljhk times, was no longer even nominally
the seat of government in Islam.

Dating from the earlier years of the Saljhk period
we have the History of Baghdad, a work written
by Khatib in 450 (a. D. 1058), which still unfor-
tunately remains in manuscript. It is full of
interesting details in regard to the origin and
position of the various buildings in both the western
and eastern quarters of the city, and much of it
has been copied, without any acknowledgement, by
later compilers such as Y^ljht. This work of
Khatib contains, for instance, the account of the
Greek embassy to Baghdad of the year 305 (A.b.
917^), with the description of the Palaces of the
Caliphs in the time of Muktadir, and though the
book is in great part merely a compilation, it is
a compilation at first hand citing authorities, which
is more than unfortunately can be said of most of
the work of later writers.

The century of the Saljfik supremacy witnessed
the great expansion of East Baghdad, for during the
reign of Mul}:tadir suburbs were found and grew up
round the Palaces of the Caliph which were after-
wards surrounded by the city wall in the time of
Mustazhir. As showing the wide extent of the

^ See J. R. A. S., 1897, p. 35. The full name of the writer is
Ahmad ibn ‘AW al-Khatlb al-Baghdadl, and the name Kha{tJk, meaning
the ‘ preacher,’ has been adopted for reference in these pages merely for
convenience of brevity.

324 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.«

town on both banks of the river, even before this
reign Khattb reports that when he lived at Baghdad
there were six great mosques where the public
prayers were said on the Friday. These were, four
in West Baghdad ; namely the Mosque of Mansftr
in the ■ Round City, the Mosque of the Harbiyah
Quarter, that of the Fief of Zubaydah, and the
Mosque of BarithS. halfway to Muhawwal on the
'ts 4 Canal ; while in East Baghdad there were but
two Friday mosques, namely the Mosque in Rusifah
and that which the Caliph 'All Muktaft had built
in the palace — for the Jimi'-as-Sultin was of later
date than the time of Khatib

Khatib also gives some important data concerning
the area covered by the houses of Baghdad in his
day, confirming what has been told us in the pre-
vious century by Istakhrl, to the effect that the city
had then already extended over an area of land
measuring five miles across in breadth and width.
The statements found in Khatib are reckoned in
terms of the Jarib, a land measure which was a
square of sixty ells side. Adopting twenty-three
inches as the mean of the various estimates for
the length of the Dhirl' or ell, three Jaribs and
a third may be taken as equivalent to our acre,
or in other words ten Jaribs are equal to three
acres, and the English square mile would contain
2,133 Jaribs I

Coming now to the statements made by Khatib,
we find that three valuations of the area of the city
at different epochs are recorded. The earliest dates

^ Khatib, folio 103 a ; and for what follows see folio 108 a, b,
® For this estimate of the Jarib compare Mawardi, p. 265.

,xxni.] Recapitulation: Middle Period 325

from the time when Muwaffak, brother of the Caliph
Mu'tamid, was in Baghdad — presumably therefore
about the year 270 (a. d. 884) — during the Zanj
rebellion, while the Caliphs still resided at S^lmarrd.
It is reported that East Baghdad at this time
covereTi 26,250 Jaribs, West Baghdad covering
17,500 Jaribs, of which total the cemeteries counted
for seventy-four J aribs. These figures give an area
of about 12I and 81: square miles respectively
for the two halves of the city, east and west, or
twenty-one square miles in total, the cemeteries
occupying rather more than twenty-two acres of
this space.

Next, at some date nearer to the time of Khatib,
which is not specified, but when Baghdad had once
more become ‘the Abode of the Caliphate,’ the
numbers recorded are 2 7,000 Jaribs for East Baghdad,
and for the older city on the western bank, at one
time 26,750 Jaribs, but at another time 16,750
Jaribs — unless indeed the higher of these figures be
regarded as merely a clerical error for the lower,
though as against this supposition it is to be re-
marked that each figure is cited and vouched for
by Khatib on a separate authority. These figures
work out as tlie equivalent of 1 2|- square miles for
East Baghdad, and for the lower estimate of the
western city, somewhat under eight square miles.
In round numbers 20 ^ square miles for both sides
at this lower estimate for West Baghdad, while the
sum total would come up to about twenty-five square
miles if we accept the higher figure.

These calculations cannot of course be regarded
as very exact, but the Arabs were, for their time,
skilful land surveyors, practising the art for fiscal

326 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch ..

assessment and for the laying down of the irrigation
canals. Further, as above noted, these figures tend
to confirm the estimate already given by I§takhrl,
which at five miles across, length and breadth, would
give twenty-five square miles for the square, and
19-r square miles for the area of a circle with this
diameter^. How much Baghdad has decreased
since the times of the Caliphs is made evident by
the fact that at the present day East Baghdad is
cpmputed to cover an area of 591 acres, while in
West Baghdad the remains known as the Old Town
comprise only 146 acres, giving a total for both
sides which is equivalent to rather over one square
mile and a sixth, this diminished area being now
surrqunded by walls whose circuit is estimated at
about five miles.

The Saljfiks, as already said, had inherited from
pheir predecessors, the Buyids, the great palace and
government offices called the Ddr-as-Saltanah in
the upper part of the eastern city. On the south
side of this MclUk Sh 4 h founded the great Saljfik
mosque known as the Jimi'-as-Sultin, while at
about the same tim,e his Wazir Nizim-al-Mnlk built
and endowed the Nizimiyah College on the land
by the Tigris bank below the Palaces of the Caliph.
These buildings both date from the reign of the
Caliph Muktadi, in whose time also many new
quarters were laid out to the north and east of the
Palaces of the Caliphs, which quarters before long
came to form the new tpwn of East Baghdad. In

^ For the length of the side of the Jarib, namely sixty ells, Khatib uses
the term Habl^ meaning ‘a cord,’ or frope,’ which apparently is not
given, in this special sense in our dictionaries, and it may therefore
be worth noting.

^ xxiii.] Recapitulatiofi : Middle Period

327

488 (a.d. 1095), at the beginning of the reign of the
next Caliph, Mustazhir, this new city, lying about
a mile below the SaljClk Palaces, was surrounded
by a wall pierced by four gates, which wall (as
proved by the gateways) is identical in its main
lines with the present town wall of modern Baghdad.

The Caliphate, even before the beginning of the
Saljhk period, had already sunk into political insig-
nificance, and the Caliphs now having much spare
time and considerable revenues employed their
energies' in palace building. It is indeed mainly to
this period that the great I^arim or Precinct, as their
residence came to be called, owed its magnificence,
as described in the pages of Yakiit. He mentions
in particular the great Ray)i 4 niyin (the Palace on
the Perfumers’ Market), and the second Palace of
the Crown (IJasr-at-Tdj), both of which were built
at the close of the Saljfik period.

In the year 530 (a.d. 1136), under the Caliph
Mansfir R^ishid (not to be confounded with Hirfin-
ar- Rashid), Baghdad sustained a third siege, of only
two months’ duration, however, by an army under
command of Sultan Mas'Cid the Saljfih- The Sultan,
who had pitched his siege camp at the Miliklyah,
effected a complete blockade of the city, for the
Governor of Welsit sent him up reinforcements in
boats which effectually shut the river exit, while
the populace, taking advantage of the troubles, rose
in insurrection against the Caliph, plundered the
quarters of the western city, and sacked the palace
of the T^hirid Harim, where it is said they gained
an immense booty. After a blockade of fifty days
the Caliph Mansfir RAshid finally fled to Mosul, and
was there forced to abdicate, his uncle Muhammad

328 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.-\

Muktafi being set up in his place, and Sultan Mas'hd
retired with his army eastward

A fourth siege took place twenty-one years later,
during the reign of the Caliph Muhammad Muktafi,
whose relations with Sultan Muhammad, nephew
and successor of Sultan Mas'hd aforesaid, Ifad be-
come so strained in a. H. 551 that the Saljhk Sultan,
marching into 'Irak, appeared with his army before
the walls of Baghdad in the month Dhu-l-Ka'adah
of that year (January, 1157 A.D.). The Caliph forth-
with shut himself up in East Baghdad, where a great
store of munitions and provisions, by his orders,
had been brought together. The city walls were
well provided with catapults and mangonels, the
towers being garrisoned by crossbowmen. Further,
barges, also carrying crossbowmen and catapults,
were set to patrol the Tigris — where the bridges of
boats had been taken up — in order more thoroughly
to guard the riverside of the eastern city.

Marching down the great Khur^sin road, Sultan
Muhammad effected a junction with his Lieutenant,
the Governor of Mosul, and himself crossed the
Tigris above Baghdad. The attack was then begun
in two divisions, namely from the western quarter
and from the north-east, where part of the
army occupied the great Palace of the Saljhks out-
side the city wall. Upstream, above Baghdad,
Sultan Muliammad had already spanned the Tigris
by a new bridge of boats, tlius conveniently to
connect the two portions of his army. His own
headquarters were on the Sarat Canal, but from
time to time he. crossed to the Saljhk Palace of the

^ The details of the third siege of Baghdad are given by Ibn-al-
Athir, xi. 26. '

» XXIII.] Recapitulation: Middle Period 329

eastern .-.ide in order to urge on the siege operations.
In East Baghdad the city walls were already closely
invested by his troops, in spite of frequent sallies
from within the town, and the besiegers were
shortly after their arrival reinforced from yillah,
Khfah* Wdsit, and Basrah. In spite of numbers,
however, the siege made but little progress, and at
the end of two months the Sultan found that his ad-
vanced positions had come to be so much harassed
by the mangonels of the townspeople, that he was
forced to shift his headquarter camp and retire
westwards to the line of the Nahr ‘Isi. His troops
had more than once directed their attack against the
river front of East Baghdad, where there was no city
wall, only the line of the great palaces of the Caliph
and the garden walls ; but here the assailants were
easily beaten off by the Baghdad people, and already
they had lost many of their best men.

Meanwhile, in the month Safar of 552 (March,
1157 A. D.), the Hajj caravan from Mecca arrived
on its return journey, and the pilgrims were much
scandalized at the spectacle of the Commander of
the Faithful being assaulted in his own capital by
the Saljiilc Sultan. Further, in the course of the
last two months the Caliph had successfully turned
the arts of diplomacy agfainst his adversary, and
Sultan Muhammad in addition to the ill success of
the siege, now found himself threatened by treason
at home, where a relative was intriguing to supplant
him in his capital city of Hamad&n. Thus matters
went rapidly from bad to worse, and in the following
month of Rabf I (April), after having been rather
more than three months fruitlessly encamped before
Baghdad, Sultan Mu^iammad in despair of success

33° Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

precipitately raised the siege. He had to recross the
Tigris by his new bridge above the Saljhk Palace
before setting out for Hamaddn with his body-guard
and personal followers, and his retreat was so ill
organized that he came near to lose all his baggage
on the passage of the bridge. The people of Baghdad,
immediately on hearing of his departure, had come
pouring out of the city ; they forthwith stormed and
sacked the great Saljhk Palace, the gates of which
they tore off, burning all the furniture within its
precincts, and then suddenly advancing, cut the
communications between the body-guard of the Sultan
and the main portion of his army, which had re-
mained encamped in West Baghdad. Sultan Mu-
hammad, however, only delaying to recover his
personal baggage, hastened his retreat along the
Khurds^n highroad towards Hamadin, and the re-
mainder of his army, under the command of the
Governor of Mosul, though still in force on the
western bank, finding that they were thus abandoned
by their master, promptly retired north on Mosul,
without any further molestation from the besieged.

The details of this siege, of which the foregoing
is a condensed account, are graphically related by
the contemporary historian Tmid-ad-Dln of Isfahan,
who was in Baghdad at the time, and took the
occasion to indite a congratulatory ode to the
Caliph Muhammad Muktaft on the success of his
arms. The account, it is true, adds little to our
topographical knowledge, but in the dearth of
contemporary writers it is not without interest ^
A notice of the third siege, that of the year
A. H. 530, as also very succinctly of this fourth
^ 'Imad-ad-Din, ii. 246 to 255 ;^Ibn-al-Athir, xi. 140.

xxin.] Recapitulation : Middle Period

331

siege of the year a. h. 551, are likewise recorded
under their respective dates in the chronicle of
Ibn-al-Athlr, who becomes our best general autho-
rity for Baghdad after the beginning of the fourth
ceptury (the tenth a. d.) — when Tabari and his
continuator 'Arib have closed their annals — and
this chronicle carries us down to the year 628
(a.d. 1230), namely to the reign of the father of the
last Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad,

The Saljflk: supremacy may be said virtually to
have come to an end with the death of Sultan
Sanjir, the last of the great Saljilks, in 552 (a.d.
1x57); after which began the fifth and last period
in the history of Baghdad, which was characterized
by the almost complete political insignificance of
the Abbasid Caliphs ; and finally the Caliphate,
after a century of this dotage, ended with the
Mongol invasion under HMagCl in 656 (a. D. 1258).
During this period the Caliphs were chiefly occupied
in pulling down and rebuilding ephemeral palaces,
and with laying out gardens within the Irlarlm walls,
all of which futilities appear to have greatly impressed
the Persian poet Khikini, who visited Baghdad in
550 (a. D. 1155), pilgrimage to Mecca. He

has left us a very rhetorical description (useless,
unfortunately, for topographical purposes) of what
he saw in ‘ the Abode of the Caliphate ’ : the g3,rdens,
he says, are the equal of those of Paradise; the
waters of the Tigris, which are only comparable in
iheir pellucidness to the tears of the Virgin Mary,
flow round past the Karkh Quarter, and the river
surface is everywhere covered with boats which
Khikinf likens to the cradle of Jesus for their
grace of build. With a good deal more in this style

332

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch. *

of bombast, and avoiding any detailed description of
the town or its palaces, Khakint concludes his
poem with a long panegyric of the Caliph Muhammad
Muktafi and of the various learned persons whom
he saw in Baghdad

Benjamin of Tudela, the Jewish traveller, Visited
Baghdad a few years after the time of Khikini,
approximately in 555 (a. d. 1160), but his narrative
gives us little topographical information, since his
attention is wholly directed to enumerating the
settlements of his co-religionists in Babylonia. He
states, however, that in his time the Caliph only left
his palace once a year, namely on the great feast
day at the close of the Ramadin Fast, when setting
forth in procession he visited the mosque near the
Basrah Gate, whicli same Benjamin of Tudela says
was the metropolitan mosque of the city. The
J4mi‘ of the old Round City of Mansur is evidently
the place here designated ; but it may be questioned
(comparing this with the account left us by Ibn
Jubayr a quarter of a century later) whether either
the Caliph Muhammad Muktafi or Mustanjid really
maintained the seclusion of which Benjamin of
Tudela speaks

The graphic descriptions of Baghdad given by
the Spanish Arab Ibn Jubayr, who visited Baghdad
in 581 (a. D. 1185) are a complete contrast to the
futilities of the Persian poet Khclkdnt. Ibn Jubayr
was then on his way back from Mecca, and came up
the great Kiifah highroad from the south, having

^ Khakani, p. 91. I have to thank my friend Professor E. G. Browne
of Cambridge for the loan of this work, which I should otherwise have
failed to see.

* Benjamin of Tudela, i. 97.

xxiii.] Recapitulation : Middle Period

333

crossed the Euphrates at yillah by the bridge of
boats recently established here by the Caliph N^sir
for the convenience of the pilgrims, who formerly
had had to cross the great river in a ferry. Leaving
the Euphrates, Ibn Jubayr passed through the town
of $afsar on the canal of that name, and entered
Baghdad on the third day of the month $afar,
corresponding in that year to the middle of May,
alighting in the suburb of West Baghdad called the
Ifurayj’-ah, which lay over against the Nizimlyah
College of the eastern city.

Ibn Jubayr devotes many pages to the account of
what he did and saw during the fortnight of his
sojourn in the capital of the Caliph Nisir, whom he
had the honour of seeing on more than one occasion.
He describes West Baghdad as being for the greater
part in ruin. Its four most populous quarters were :
first, the' I^urayyah Suburb near the Bridge of Boats,
the best built in the first instance and the least
dilapidated ; next to this was Karkh, surrounded by
its own wall ; and above was the Quarter of the
Basrah Gate (for what remained of the Round City
had now come to be known by the name of its
south-eastern gateway), with the great Mosque of
Mansur, still used for the Friday prayers ; lastly,
the quarter called the Shari' (the Highroad), along
the Tigris bank above the 'Adudl Hospital, the
market of which connected the ShAri' Quarter with
the Suburb of tire Basrah Gate. Other but less
populous quarters of West Baghdad were the
Harbiyah, the highest on the river bank, and adjacent
thereto the ‘Attdbiyah, noted for the manufacture of
the 'Attibi (tabby) silk and cotton stuffs named
after it. Further, Ibn Jubayr saw the, tomb of

334

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch. *

Ma'r^if KarkhJ near the Basrah Gate Suburb, and
the shrine of the Imdm Mhsd in the great cemetery
to the north (known now as the KeLzimayn), this last
being surrounded by the graves of many distinguished
and holy personages.

Across the river in East Baghdad, opposite the
K&zimayn, was the quarter round the tomb of
Abu Idanlfah, lying above Rus^lfah and its great
mosque, and round this last were seen the sepulchres
of many other holy men, and more celebrated still the
tombs of the Caliphs. At a considerable distance
below Ru§4fah came the Palaces of the Caliph, cover-
ing an area estimated at more than a quarter of the
whole of the eastern city, and the royal precincts
were encircled by the various palaces of the Abbasid
nobles, ‘so to speak, imprisoned in their grandeur.’
Ibn Jubayr was much struck by the beauty of the
gardens in this quarter ; but he remarks that
the markets of East Baghdad were none the less
almost entirely supplied by the produce of the lands
under cultivation on the opposite or western bank.
There were three great mosques for the Friday
prayers in use in East Baghdad when Ibn Jubayr
was there, namely the Mosque of the Caliph within
the palace; the Mosque of the Sultan, which lay
outside, to the north of the Gate of the Sultan in the
city wall, in front of the Saljhk Palaces ; and, lastly,
the Ru§afah Mosque, which stood (he says) a mile
distant from the Mosque of the Sultan aforesaid, in
the neighbourhood of the shrine of Abu Hantfah.

In, the whole of Baghdad Ibn Juba 3 nr further
counted eleven mosques where the Friday prayers
were said, and of IJammims or hot baths, so many
that none could tell their number, one person

xxiii.] Recapitulation : Middle Period

335

assuring him that there were over two thousand,
and he adds that in these the halls were so finely
plastered with bitumen, brought from Ba§rcLh, that
the visitor imagined the walls to be lined with slabs
of black marble. Of colleges — ‘each more mag-
nificeift than a palace’ — over thirty were to be
counted, the greatest being the Nizimiyah, which
had been recently restored. Lastly, I bn Jubayr
describes the city wall with its four gates, which
went in a semicircle round East Baghdad, from the
Tigris bank above, to the river again below the city
quarters ; and this wall, as already said, is virtually
identical with the presentwall round modern Baghdad,
for one of the extant gates still bears an inscription
set up by the Caliph Nisir, who was reigning when
Ibn Jubayr visited Baghdad.

Towards the close of the reign of this same Caliph
Niisir, and about the year 623 (a.d. 1226),
wrote his great Geographical Dictionary (the articles
arranged in alphabetical order), which forms perhaps
the greatest storehouse of geographical facts compiled
by any one man during the Middle Ages. He knew
Baghdad intimately, having been brought up there,
but wrote at a distance, compiling uncritically, and
hence in minor points of detail he is sometimes
guilty of egregious blunders. His description of
the Palaces of the Caliph is invaluable, but his
statements concerning the relative positions of places
and quarters in Baghdad, especially in regard to the
points of the compass, are both vague and con-
tradictory. If we were without the works of his
predecessors, it would be impossible, following his
accounts alone, to draw up any consistent plan of
Baghdad ; but with the earlier systematic descriptions

336 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch. -

of Ya'kilbi and Ibn Serapion to fall back on, enabling
us to correct his frequent minor errors, the plan
of the city having thus been laid down gains a
fullness of detail that would be unattainable without
the information contained in the long series of
articles in his Dictionary. ^

He describes (under various articles) West
Baghdad as consisting in his day of a number of
separate quarters, each enclosed by its own wall.
Thus the Harblyah in the northern part of West
Baghdad lay ‘like a separate walled town,’ nearly two
miles distant from the remainder of old Baghdad,
and it was surrounded by many waste lands. The
Harblyah included several minor quarters, and to
the west of it lay the separate townships of the
Chahir Shj (Four Markets), of which the ‘Attibiyah
(noticed already by Ibn Jubayr) was the best known
part. South of the yarbiyah stood the old mosque
of hlansiir, which was included in the Quarter of the
Basrah Gate, this gate, as already said, having given
its name to all that still continued to be habitable of
the Round City. The Karkh&yi Canal, according
to Yikiit, had disappeared, but the great merchants’
quarter of Karkh remained standing ‘ a horse gallop ’
(or about half a mile) distant from the Basrah Gate
Quarter, and the population of this last being of the
orthodox Sunni faith were the rivals of the Karkh
people, who were all bigoted heterodox Shi'ahs.

Adjoining Karkh, and on the Tigris bank, was
the Kurayyah and the Quarter of the Kalliyin
Canal, where fried meats were sold, also the Tibik
Canal Quarter, which in the time of Yaktit had
been recently burnt down ; and hence, as he says,
these were already for the most part merely so many

XXIII.] Recapitulation : Middle Period 337

rubbish heaps. The quarter round the Muhawwal
Gate, lying inland from Karkh, and inhabited by
Sunnis who were always at feud with their Shi' ah
neighbours, appears to have still retained some of
its former opulence ; while the town of Muhawwal,
a leagfue beyond the outer suburbs of West Baghdad,
was populous and famous for its excellent markets.
The Shhniziyah Cemetery lay to the south of Karkh,
while to the north of the Harbiyah extended
the great burial-ground round the shrine of the
Imdm Mtisi, afterwards known as the Kizimayn.

On the eastern bank, the centre of population
was the great Palace of the Caliph, described as
occupying a third part of the whole area of the
city; all round this lay a network of markets and
streets extending to the city wall, and in places
going beyond it. Outside and at some distance
to the north of this wall was Rusifah with its
mosque surrounded by the tombs of the Caliphs ;
while upstream, beyond this again lay the quarter
named after the shrine of Abu Idanifah, with its own
market; and these two outlying suburbs, with the
neighbouring Christian quarter, called the Dir-ar-
Rdm (House of the Greeks), were all that remained
habitable in the time of Y &k<!it of the older part of
the eastern city, which formerly had consisted of the
three great quarters of Ru§afah, Shammisiyah, and
the Mukharrim.

Yiklit, it will be seen by the dates, describes
Baghdad for us as the great city stood immediately
prior to the Mongol invasion ; and the only building
of note erected after his time by the Caliphs was
the Mustan§iriyah College. This was built by
Mustansir, the father of the last of the Abbasids,

z

BAGHDAD

338 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

and the description of it is given in the contemporary
chronicle of Abu-l-Faraj. The ruin of this college
still exists, and at some distance from it stands the
minaret of a mosque also inscribed with the name
of this same Caliph. No mention, however, of
Mustan§ir having built a mosque occurs ki the
chronicles, and (as stated in a previous chapter)
it seems probable that these remains of the so-called
Mustansiriyah Mosque are in reality those of the far
older mosque of the palace (built by 'All Muktafl
more than three centuries before), which Mustansir
having restored, caused to be ornamented with the
inscription now bearing his name. It may be added
that besides these buildings in the city of Baghdad,
Mustansir also constructed the magnificent stone
bridge of four great arches over the Dujayl Canal
near the town of NarbS., as is mentioned by the
historian Fakhri, the remains of which still exist
and have been carefully described by Captain Felix
Jones, R.N.’^

In the dearth of authorities for the last centuries
of the history of Baghdad, the great Biographical
Dictionary compiled about the year 654 (a. d. 1256)
by Ibn Khallikdn is a very useful work of reference.
He was a native of Arbela, near Mosul in Upper
Mesopotamia, and though he does not appear
himself to have visited Baghdad, he was evidently
well acquainted with the history of its public
buildings. From incidental remarks in the various
biographies we often gain information — concerning
the later buildings especially —which is lacking in

* Fakhri, 380. Jones, 252, where two drawings of this bridge will
be found, also the copy of the insciiption by Mustansir which it bears,
dated the year 629 (a.D. 1232).

XXIII.] Recapitulation : Middle Period 339

the meagre chronicles of this period ; thus his article
on Mdlik Shdh is our only authority for the fact that
this prince was the founder of the Jdmi'-as-Sultin,
the great Friday mosque of the Saljdhs in East
Kaghdad, outside the Palace of the Sultan. Ibn
Khallikin died at Damascus in 681 (a. d. 1282),
a score of years after the Mongol sack of Baghdad ;
but of these recent events he maintains a discreet
silence in his dictionary, which deals with the
notable personages of the past age only, and we
have to fall back on Persian histories for details
of the great siege.

z 2

CHAPTER XXIV

RECAPITULATION AND AUTHORITIES: FINAL PERIOD

The Fall of Baghdad: the Mongol invasion* Persian Histories:
the Tabakit-i-Ndsirf, Rashid-ad-Din, and Wassif. Details of the
Mongol siege. Death of the last Caliph Musta'sim. The Mardsid-al-
Ittili*. Summary of history of Baghdad since the Mongol siege. Ibn
Bathtah, the Berber. Hamd-Allah, the Persian. The tomb of 'Abd-
al-Kddir of Gildn. Modern descriptions of Baghdad : Tavernier and
Niebuhr. The so-called tomb of Zubaydah. The Plan of mediaeval
Baghdad and of the modem city. Excavations required to discover
the sites of the three ancient Mosques.

For the details of the fall of Baghdad and the
g^eat siege by Hfildgh the Mongol, we have to
consult, in the main, the works of Persian historians,
since Ibn-al-Athlr closes his chronicle with the year
A.H. 628, and neither Abu-l-Faraj nor Abu-l-Fidi
affords much information on this subject. Indeed,
of the Mongol siege in the seventh century a. H., we
know far less than we do, thanks to Tabari, of
the first siege in the time of the Caliph Amin in
the second century a.h.

The Persian history called the Tabakit-i-Nisiri,
which was written shortly after 658 (a,d. 1260), is
a contemporary authority for the times of Hfiligfi,
and this with the information found in the work of

Recapitulation : Final Period 341

Rashid-ad-Dln, also written in Persian, which was
finished in 710 (a.o. 1310), provides a fairly clear
account of the siege operations \ After overrunning
^nd devastating Western Persia, the Mongol armies
poured down die great Khur^dn road from Idulw^n,
the main body marching direct on East Baghdad.
A considerable detachment, however, had been sent
upstream, with orders to cross the Tigris at Takrlt,
thence to make a sweep round, and after capturing
AnbAr on the Euphrates, these troops were to
approach West Baghdad by the line of the ‘ts4
Canal.

The Mongol forces were led by PIAligfi (grandson
of Changiz Khin) who commanded the centre division
in person, and he pitched his camp to the east of
Baghdad, the siege beginning in the middle of
Muharram of the year 656 (January, 1258). His
main attack was directed against the ‘left of the
city ’ — to one coming from Persia — namely the Burj
'Ajami (the Persian Bastion) and the IJialbah Gate.
The right wing of the Mongol army lay before ‘ the
breadth of the city,' that is, on the north side, facing
the gate of the Market of the Sultan, or the Bib-
as-Sult4n ; and the left wing was encamped before

' Another almost contemporary writer is Wass^f, the historiographer
of Ghtztn the ll-Kh^n of Persia, He was born at Shtri* in A.D. 1363,
five years, therefore, after the Mongol siege of Baghdad, and must
have known personally many of those who had taken part in this
famous event. His history wts composed in the year 700 (a.p. 1300),
and I have gone through the pages of this work which are devoted to
Hfil&gii and the siege, but have been unable to glean a single faqt not
already mentioned, by Rashtd-ad-Din ; the bombastic style in which
WassM writes being indeed but ill adapted for conveying any precise
topographical information. F akhri is a contemporary Arabic authority ;
he wrote in the year 700 (a.d. 1300), and had been in Baghdad^ but
his account of the siege gives few topographical details.

342 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.*

the Kalwidhi Gate at the southern extremity of
East Baghdad. The detachments that had pre-
viously been sent north across the river, after de-
feating the armies of the Caliph Musta'sim on the
right bank of the Tigris, took up their positions in
two attacks, one near the 'Adudi Hospital* at the
upper (older Main) Bridge of Boats, while the second
had its siege camp below this to the southward,
probably near the lower bridge opposite the Palace
of the Caliph, and outside the quarter known as
the Kurayyah.

On the western bank, the lower camp of the Mon-
gols is variously described as having been pitched
at the place called Dlildb-i-Bakal (in the Persian
history of Rashld-ad-Din), or at the Mabkalah (ac-
cording to Abu-l-Faraj), the former name meaning
‘ the water-wheel of the vegetable (garden),’ and the
latter ‘the kitchen garden,’ both teriris reminding
us of the older Dir-al-Battlkh (Fruit Market),
which stood, according to Ibn Serapion, in this part
of West Baghdad The Kal'ah or Citadel, which
is also mentioned by Rashld-ad-Dln when describing
the attack on the west side, presumably has refer-
ence to what in the thirteenth century a.d. still
remained standing of the old fortifications of the
Round City of Mansfir.

The siege operations, pushed to the uttermost by
Huligfh outside the city, were but too well seconded
by treachery within the walls of Baghdad, for both
Karkh anti the quarter round the shrine of the
Imdm Mdsi in the Kctzimayn were inhabited by
Shi*ahs, who to prove their abhorrence of the Sunni
Caliph corresponded traitorously with the infidel
* See above, p. 85.

XXIV.] Recapitulation : Final Period

343

enemy. After a blockade of about fifty days, a great
assault was ordered at the Persian Bastion south of
the Halbah Gate, and East Baghdad being taken
by storm, the Caliph Musta'sim was finally brought
out prisoner with his family and lodged in the
Mongol camp. Shortly afterwards Hhldgfi on enter-
ing the city took up his residence in what Rashid-
ad-Dln calls the Maymfiniyah (the Monkey-house),
doubtless a designed corruption for the name of the
Mamfiniyah Quarter, which lay on the side of East
Baghdad nearest to what had been the headquarter
camp of the Mongols.

The sack of Baghdad which followed lasted forty
days, during which time a large proportion of the
inhabitants were butchered in cold blood; while a
conflagration which destroyed the Mosque of the
Caliph, the shrine of Mhsd-al-Kizim, and the tombs
of the Caliphs at Ru§&fah, besides most of the
streets and private houses, completed the ruin of
the city. The death of the Caliph Musta'sim, and
of his sons, followed close on these events — ^the
details of their ‘ martyrdom ’ are variously given in
different authorities, who, however, agree as to the
main fac(s — and then the Mongol hordes passed on
to further conquests and fresh plunder; Hfilclg^
leaving orders that the great Mosque of the Caliph
and the shrine of Mfisd in the KAzima3m. should
be rebuilt’.

* A full description of the fall of Baghdad, carefully put together
from all available sources — ^Arabic, Persian, and Turkish — will be
found in Sir H. Howorth’s History of the Mongols (iii. 113 to 133).
For the death of the Caliph Musta'sim the well-known account given
by Marco Polo (i. 65), which is confirmed by the Chronicle of Ibn
Furdt, his contemporary, is presumably true in the main fects. See
a paper in the/. R. A. S. for 1900, p. 293, by the present writer.

344 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

The state of ruin to which Baghdad was reduced
by the Mongol sack is clearly indicated, half a century
later, in the Mardsid, an epitome of Yikdt’s
Geographical Dictionary, which was composed about
the year 700 (a.d. 1300) by an anonymous author.
This book gives a summary of the facts detailed
in the more voluminous work ; but in addition, the
epitomist, when treating of places personally known
to him, constantly supplies emendations for correct-
ing Y^kht, and states how matters stood in his own
day. Hence, though primarily only an epitome of
a compilation, the Mardsid has for Baghdad and
Mesopotamia the value of an authority at first hand.
The author’s description of Baghdad city is graphic
and terse. After referring to the ruin brought about
by a long succession of plundering armies — Persian,
Turk, and Mongol — each of which had in turn
wasted the goods and houses of the former inhabitants,
he concludes with the following paragraph : —

‘ Hence nothing now remains of Western Baghdad
but some few isolated quarters, of which the best
inhabited is Karkh ; while in Eastern Baghdad, all
having long ago gone to ruin in the Shammisiyah
Quarter and the Mukharrim, they did build a wall
round such of the city as remained, this same lying
along the bank of the Tigris. Thus matters con-
tinued until the Tatars (under Hhligli) came, when
the major part of this remnant also was laid in ruin,
and its inhabitants were all put to death, hardly one
surviving to recall the excellence of the past. And
then there came in people from the countryside, who
settled in Baghdad, seeing that its own citizens
had all perished; so the city now is indeed other
than it was, its population in our time being wholly

XXIV.] Recapitulation : Final Period

345

changed from its former state — but Allah, be He
exalted, ordaineth allh’

The history of Baghdad, from the date of the
Mongol invasion (a. D. 1258) to the present time,
may be summed up in a few paragraphs : in fact,
from having been the real 6r nominal capital of
Islam Baghdad now became merely the chief town
of the Province of Arabian TrSk.

The descendants of HCilagh, the tl-Khdns, after
governing Persia and Mesopotamia for something
less than a century, were succeeded by the Jalayrs
in Mesopotamia, Shaykh Ilasan Buzurg, chief of the
line, making Baghdad his residence in a. d. 1340. In
A.D. 1393 Timur occupiixl Baghdad, remaining there
a couple of months, and on his departure left orders
to his lieutenant, Mirzfi Abu Bakr, to rebuild the
city, which had then fallen for the most part to ruin.
After the death of Timur, Sultan Ahmad the Jalayr
in part recovered possession of his dominions, but
in A. D. 141 1 the dynasty gave place to the I<iara“
Kuyunli, the Turkomans of the ‘ Black Sheep,’ who
occupied Baghdad till they were in turn dispossessed,
in A.D. 1469, by the rival clan of the Ak-Kuyunli
or ‘ White Sheep ’ Turkomans.

In A. D. 1508 the troops of Slisdi Ism&ll I of
Persia took Baghdad from these I'urkomans : but
the Persian.s gave place t(^ the Ottoman Turks
in A.D. 1534, when the general of Sultan Sulaymdn
the Magnificent concpiercd the city. In a. d. 1623,
under Sh^h ‘Abbds the Great, the; Persians, through
the treachery of Baklr Aghd the Jani.ssary, once
more became masters of Baghdad ; but a few years
later, in a. d. 1638, they were again driven out, when
^ Marasid, u 163.

346 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.'»

Sultan Murid IV conquered the city. And since
this date Baghdad has been the residence of the
Turkish Pasha of Mesopotamia.

Our latest Arab authority for Baghdad is Ibn
Bathtah, the Berber, whose travels may rival those
of his contemporary Marco Polo in extent. * In his
book he takes Ibn Jubayr as his model, and he cites
long passages from the work of his predecessor;
but unfortunately does not always state quite clearly
whether what Ibn Jubayr had described in 581
(a. D. 1185) was what he, Ibn Bathtah, had still
found existing in Baghdad at the date of his own
sojourn there in the year 727 (a. d. 13-27). This
vagueness of statement at times militates against
the value of his work from a topographical point of
view, km Bathtah, however, describes sottie buildings
of a later date than Ibn Jubayr; the Mustansiriyah
College, for example, indicating where this stood in
Eastern Baghdad, and hence, since its ruins still
exist, enabling us to add another fixed point for
connecting modern Baghdad with the plan of the
city in the .times of the Caliphs. 'Further, Ibn
Bathtah (unless indeed in this he is merely servilely
copying his predecessor Ibn Jubayr), appears to
have been the last authority who saw the three
great mosques of the older capital still standing : —
namely the Mosque of Manshr in West Baghdad,
and the Rusifah Mosque on the eastern side, lying
one mile distant from its neighbour the Mosque of
the Saljhk Sultan. At the present day, these three
buildings seem to have entirely disappeared, as also
all vestiges of the 'Adudi Hospital, which in the
fourteenth century a.d. was a ruin standing on
the right bank of the Tigris, at the place where the

XXIV.] Recapitulation : Final Period 347

older Main Bridge of Boats had crossed the river to
Rusifah.

The last Moslem authority for Baghdad is the
,Persian historian and geographer Hamd- Allah,
surnamed Mustawfi (the Treasurer), who was the
contemporary of Ibn Bat<ltah, the Berber. He
wrote sin Universal ' History called the Tartkh-i-
Guztdah (the Choice Chronicle) and a work on
Geography called the Nuzhat-al-KulM (the Heart’s
Delight), the later work having been completed in
the year 740 (a.d. 1339). Hamd- Allah describes
Baghdad, both east and west, as in his day surrounded
by walls. The eastern city -wall had four gates, and
from the river bank above to the river bank below,
followed a semicircle measuring in circuit 18,000
paces. The western suburb, which as a whole was
called Karkh, had two gates in its wall, and this
wall measured 12,000 paces in its semicircular sweep.
The description of Hanid-Allah is thus virtually
identical with that given by Ibn Jubayr, his pre-
decessor by two centuries, and in the matter of the
walls corresponds with what is now found to exist
in modern Baghdad. Hamd-Allah does not give
names to the two Karkh gates, but the four gates
in East Baghdad are named, and they may be easily
identified with those mentioned by Ibn Jubayr, and
are identical with the four that still exist under
other names at the present day.

Hamd-Allah especially describes the shrines of
Baghdad ; namely the Kizimayn with the tomb
of Ibn Hanbal and the tomb of Ma'rClf Karkhl
on the west bank ; and on the eastern side the
shrine of Abu Hanifah. These, for the most part,
exist at present, and in his day also, though no trace

348 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

of them now remains, the tombs of the Caliphs
might still be seen in Rusifah, standing apart by
themselves like ‘a little town.’ He is also one of
the first to menti the shrine of *Abd-al-Kidir qf
Gilin, which is a noted place of pilgrimage in modern
Baghdad; this 'Abd-al-Kidir being the celebrated
founder of the Kidiriyah sect of dervishes — one of
the most widespread religious orders of Islam — who
dying at Baghdad in 651 (a.d. 1253) was buried there
a few years before the Mongol siege.

Coming down to modern times, one of the earliest
travellers who has described Baghdad (giving also a
rough plan) is the celebrated French jeweller J. B.
Tavernier, who, on his way to and from India, travelled
through Mesopotamia in 1632 and again in 1652. His
noticeof Baghdad is of the latter date, to wit a fewyears
after the Turkish conquest under Sultan Murid IV.

His description and plan show that the city was
then much what it is now, except that the area
within the walls was then less given up to ruin.
On the eastern bank of the Tigris, the town
was surrounded by its wall of burnt brick, some
three miles in total circumference, with bastions at
intervals, having a deep ditch without. The area
covered by houses measured some fifteen hundred
paces in length by seven or eight hundred paces
in breadth. The wall was pierced (as at the
present day) by four gates : namely ‘ Maazan
Capi,’ the gate leading north-west to the Mu'azzam
Shrine ; then two gates in the length of the wall on
the north-eastern side, each of which Tavernier has
marked as ‘porte murde,’ these being the present
Bdb-al-Wustint and Bib-at-Talism, which last is
still closed as by order, it is said, of Sultan Murdd IV;

XXIV.] Recapitulation : Final Period

349

finally, the gate to the south-east downstream now
known as the Bib-ash-Sharkl, which Tavernier names
‘ Cara Capi ’ or the Black Gate.

At the Bridge-head also was a gateway called
Capi’ or the Water-Gate, and the Bridge of
Boats ded across to the suburb of West Baghdad,
described as Te Faubourg dans la M^sopotamie^.’

A hundred years after the time of Tavernier
Baghdad was visited by Carstein Niebuhr, then
on his way home after his celebrated journey in
Arabia. He passed through Mesopotamia about
the year 1 750, and has left a description of Baghdad,
the accuracy of which modern authorities confirm in
every point : noting all the remains of the ancient
city that then' could be with certainty identified,
most of which are also again mentioned in the
Report of Commander Felix Jones, written in 1857.

What may be seen here at the present day is as
follows. The seat of the Turkish provincial govern-
ment is in the Eastern City on the Persian side of
the Tigris, and the old wall surrounds the town
on the land side, pierced by the four ancient gate-
ways, one of which, the BSb-at-Talism (the Gate of
the Talisman), as already stated, bears the inscription
of the Caliph N^sir. The ruins of both die Mustan-
§irtyah College and the mosque exist, and not very
far from this last stands the shrine of 'Abd-al-I^idir
of Gilin, which, as already said, dates back to the
last days of the Caliphate.

Above the city, on the eastern Tigris bank, stands
the tomb of the ImlLm Abu Hanifah in the village
now known as Al-Mu'azzam, and on the western
bank, opposite this, Niebuhr especially mentions
^ Tavernier, i. 230-239.

350 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ ch ,

that the sepulchre of the Imim Ibn IJanbal (more
correctly of 'Abd-Allah Ibn Ifanbal) had formerly
existed, but that shortly before his visit in 1750,
this tomb had been carried away by the floods of the
Tigris. On the western bank also, but above the
Muazzam village of the east side, is the Sht'ah
shrine of ^e KcLzimayn, some of the buildings of
which may date from the times of the Caliphate ;
but of the Round City of Manshr apparently nothing
remains — ^unless it be the Kdfic inscription bearing
the date 333 (a.d. 945), which Sir H. Rawlinson
describes as existing in this Quarter in the Convent
(Takiyeh) of the Bektash Dervishes.

What is now called the Old Town on this western
bank, occupies part of the site of the older Karkh
suburb, as is proved by the tomb of Ma'rhf Karkhi
which still exists, standing at some distance outside
its western gate, and this has been a much venerated
shrine since the date of his death in the year 200
(a.d. 816). Niebuhr mentions as situated in this
same neighbourhood the tomb of a certain Bahldl
Dcinah, whom he describes as having been a relative
and boon companion of the Caliph Hirdn-ar-Rashld,
the gravestone bearing for date the year 501 (a.d.
1108). This personage apparently is not noticed
by any other authority, and Hdrhn-ar-Rashtd, in
point of fact, had been dead more than three
centuries at the date inscribed on the tomb.

In regard to the so-called tomb of Zubaydah,
which now lies a little to the south of that of Ma'rflf
Karkhi, the facts cited in the Chronicle of Ibn-
al-Athir (see above, p, 165) are wholly against the
assumption that this was the place of her burial.
The older authorities, who mention the neighbouring

,xxiv.] Recapitulation : Final Period

351

shrine of Ma'rhf, make no allusion to any tomb near
here of the celebrated wife of Hirhn-ar-Rashid ;
further, in the Chronicle just named, it is distinctly
stated that Zubaydah was buried in the cemetery
of the Kdzimayn, lying near the river bank some
three miles to the north of the picturesque monu-
ment which apparently has for the last two centuries
borne her name. Niebuhr, who describes the tomb
as it stood in the last century, gives the text of the
Arabic inscription which in his day adorned it. In
this it is set forth that 'Ayishah Khclnum, daughter
of the late Mustafci P&shel, and wife of Jdusayn
Pishi, Governor of Baghdad, was buried here in
Muharram of the year 1131 (November, a.d. 1718),
her grave having been made in the sepulchre of
the Lady Zubaydah, granddaughter of the Abbasid
Caliph Manshr, and wife of H 4 rhn-ar- Rashid, the
date of whose death is correctly given as having
occurred in the year 216 (a.d. 831).

To this information Niebuhr adds the statement
that the tomb of Zubaydah had been restored when
the Turkish Khinum was buried here, some thirty
years before he visited Baghdad, but by whom the
monument was originally built appears to have been
then unknown. Sir H. Rawlinson, who lived for
many years in Baghdad, writes that the tomb of
Zubaydah was first erected in a.d. 827, corresponding
with A.H. 212 ; but this would be four years before the
date of her death as recorded on the unimpeachable
authority of Tabari, and Sir Henry gives no authority
for his statement. He also, apparently, entertained
no doubts as to the present monument being the
resting-place of this princess, so famous both in
the chronicles and the Thousand and One Nights \

352 Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

though this attribution, as already stated, is entirely
negatived by the earlier authorities. Indeed, as far
as is known, the first mention of this building being
considered to be the tomb of the Lady Zubaydaji
appears to date from the eighteenth century only,
when in a.d. 1718 Husayn Pdshi buried hfe wife
here, in what at that time he was told had been
the sepulchre of the famous Abbasid princess \

In conclusion a few paragraphs may serve to
explain how the attempt has been made, in the pre-
ceding chapters, to lay down the limits of mediaeval
Baghdad on the plan of the modern city. The
landmarks are, of course, the few ancient vestiges
that still remain to mark the sites of buildings
mentioned during the times of the Caliphs ; and
starting from the plan of the present walled city on
the east bank of the Tigris, we have to work back-
wards to the Round City of Manshr on the western
bank, of which no trace now exists.

It will be remembered that East Baghdad of the
present day has four gates, and there appears to be

^ For illustrations representing the so-called tomb of Zubaydah,
and the shrine of Ma*rdf Karkhi, see Jones, 31 1. It is possible that
this modern tomb of Zubaydah may be the building described in the
twelfth century a.d. by Ibn Jubayr, and which Ibn Batutah saw in
A.D. 1327 standing near the highroad outside the old Basrah Gate
(Ibn Jubayr, 227 ; Ibn Batutah, ii- 108). The tomb within this shrine
then bore an inscription stating that 'Awn and Muin were buried
here, two of the descendants of the Caliph 'Alt, son-in-law of the
prophet Muhammad. In* the fourteenth century A.D. this same shrine
is described as a beautiful building, within which was the gravestone
lying under a spacious dome-shaped monument. It would seem not
unlikely that in the course of the next three centuries, the inscription
having become illegible, and all memory of these Alids long forgotten,
popular tradition may have fixed on this tomb as that which had been
built over the remains of the celebrated wife of Hdrun-ar-Rashtd,
more especially since her real sepulchre in the Kizimayn probably
did not survive the Mongol siege, and the subsequent conflagration.

XXIV.] Recapitulation : Final Period

353

no reason to doubt that these, with the town wall,
are identical in position with what is described by
Ibn Jubayr as existing in a.d. 1185; further, the
ruins of the Mustansiriyah College and the ancient
minaret of the Mosque of the Caliph still mark the
upper4imit of the palace precincts, which, lying within
an encircling wall on the river bank, originally occupied
about a third of the area of the present walled town-
Another fixed point on this eastern side is the
existing shrine of Abu Hanifah, which, we are told,
stood immediately above the Rusdfah Mosque ; the
Quarters of RuscLfah and Mukharrim lying between
this point and the wall of the present town, one
beyond the other on* the Tigris bank. Above the
Abu Idanifah Shrine was the Upper Bridge of Boats,
while the Shammdsiyah Gate and suburb stretched
back from the river,and to the north of the Mukharrim
Quarter.

The Shammisiyah Quarter of the east bank lay
opposite the Harbiyah Quarter of Western Baghdad ;
and this suburb spreading out below the tombs of
the Kdzimayn enclosed in a great semicircular sweep
the northern side of the Round City of Manshr.
The present Kfizimayn Shrine is the landmark
fixing the upper limit of West Baghdad, and its
position in regard to the City of Mansilr is clearly
set forth in the old accounts. The position of the
City of Mansiir and of its four gates is fixed, within
certain narrow limits, by the facts stated as to its
size ; — its four equidistant gates having been a mile
apart one from the other, while that known as the
Khurfisdn Gate opened on the river and the Main
Bridge. The Main Bridge-head, on the eastern side,
was below Rusifah and above Mukharrim, these

BAGHDAD

A a

354

Baghdad during the Caliphate [ch.

two quarters being divided by the great eastern
highroad that went along the south side of the
Shammisiyah from the Main Bridge to the Khu-
risin Gate of the (upper) eastern city. ,

The site of the Rusifah Mosque must have been
in the loop of the Tigris above the Main Bridge,
for the palaces of the Buyids and Saljdl^s afterwards
stretched from the river bank above the shrine of
Abu Hanifah to near the river bank again at the
Zihir Garden in the Mukharrim Quarter immediately
below the bridge. Here the great Mosque of the
Sultan was afterwards built by Milik Shfih, which
stood a mile distant from the older Rusifah
Mosque, and it lay at a considerable distance outside
the upper gate of the wall of later (and modern)
Eastern Baghdad. This gate of the later wall
appears to be almost identical in position with the
more ancient gate of the Tuesday Market, the lowest
in the line of the older wall which had surrounded
the three Northern Quarters of Mukharrim, Sham-
mSstyah and Ru§4fah ; for this older wall of the
Northern Quarters went from below the Lower
Bridge inland to the Abra!z Gate (which we know
from Y4k6t stood within the area of the modem
city) and thence going up past the Khurdsin and
Baraddn Gates rejoined the river bank again at the
Shammisiyah Gate, some distance above the shrine
of Abu Hanifah, over against the Kdzima)m on the
west bank. The line of this older wall can only
be traced approximately by plotting in the various
roads and gates mentioned, but its general course
is clearly indicated by many incidental references.

In Western Baghdad a fixed point is the present
shrine of Ma‘rfif which we are told lay

XXIV.] Recapitulation: Final Period

355

outside the Basrah Gate of the Round City; and
the positions of the Basrah and Kiifah Gates — lying
a mile apart one from the other, and opening on the
Jiighroads going, respectively, south to Khfah, and
down the Tigris bank — are fixed within narrow
limits* by the Ma'rfif Shrine. The present Bridge
of Boats, which crosses the Tigris opposite the
remains of the Mustansiriyah College, is almost
certainly identical in position with the bridge men-
tioned by I bn Jubayr and Ydk6t as starting from
the Kasr'lsA Quarter, which was separated by the
Lower Harbour, at the mouth of the ‘tsi Canal,
from the ICurayyah Quarter. The positions of
these two quarters in regard to the Basrah Gate
of the Round City are thus fixed ; and the Kuray-
yah Quarter lay opposite the Nizdmiyah College in
Eastern Baghdad, which stood near the Tigris bank
between the Palaces of the Caliphs and the city wall
at the Kalwddhi Gate, which last is now known as
the Bib-ash-Sharkt of modern Baghdad.

The courses of the 'tsi Canal, the $arit, and the
Trench of Tdhir, with their numerous branches,
also the site of the town of Muhawwal, of which
apparently nothing now remains, are all fixed, within
narrow limits, by a line drawn from the point where
the Nahr 'Isd left the Euphrates below Anbelr to
the mouth of this canal, where its waters poured
into the Tigris at the Lower Harbour immediately
below the Palace Bridge and opposite the Mustan-
§irtyah College. Further, the curves followed by
the'tsd Canal and the Sarit, with their connecting
watercourses, have to be laid down so as to carry
these round the circle of the City of Mansfir, which,
with the yarblyah Quarter, lay between the §ar&t

A a 2

356 Baghdad during the Caliphate

and the Trench of T^hir ; due account being taken
of the network of waterways described by Ibn
Serapion which thus enveloped the Round City to
the south, west, and north, ivhile the Tigris bank^
marked its eastern limit.

Such, in brief outline, is the method that has
been followed in constructing the accompanying
plans; the details are filled in from the incidental
mention by many authorities of the relative positions
of places ; and that in their general lines these
plans are fairly exact appears to be proved by the
plotting-out, where various minor points from diverse
authors all work into the places indicated by the
two contemporary descriptions of Ya'khbi and Ibn
Serapion. But though the relative positions of
most of the important places are thus fixed on
more than one authority, the actual positions on
the modern map are still to be sought, and these
can only be ascertained when excavations shall
have been made, bringing to light the ruins of
the Mosque of Mansfir in the western city, and
of the Rusifah Mosque on the eastern bank, with
the great Mosque of the Sultan a mile distant from
it. Some traces of these great mosques must surely
be extant, for they were built of kiln-burnt bricks
or tiles, which do not quickly perish, and all three
were still standing in the fourteenth century a.d.,
when Ibn Battitah visited Baghdad.

INDEX

E. B. refers to places in Eastern Baghdad,
W. B. refers to places in Western Baghdad.

Abarkiih, 159.

‘Abb&din, 8.

'Abbidt, 79.

'Abbirat-al-Kukh, 112,

*Abbis, brother of Mansdr, 142 ;
bridge of (W.B.), 149; bridge
and ditch of (E. B.), 225.

*Abbis, Shih of Persia, 345.

*Abbistyah Island, 142, 148.

'Abd-Allah al-Ma*badi, 75.

'Abd-Allah ibn M^lik, 204.

*Abd-Allah or *Ubayd-Allah, son
of the Caliph Mahdi, 218.

*Abd«Allah,son of Ibn Hanbal and
his tomb, 160, 165-7, 350.

'Abd- Allah, the Alid, 205.

'Abd-al-K^dir Gilini, 348, 349.

* Abd - al - W ahhib, fief, market,
palace, and suburb, 59, 141.

"Abd-al-Wihid, market, 59.

'Abd-ar-Rahmin of Cordova, 190.

'Abd-as-Samad, uncle of MansOr,
28,

Abn^, or Persian nobles, 128.

Abraz Gate, I7I-6, 228, 284-8.

Abu *Ali ibn Shidh^n, 182.

Abu 'Attib, canal, 52, 61, 62
91 -

Abu 'Awn, fief and quarter, 124,

Abu Bakr, Mirzi, 345.

Abu IJanifah, the Imdm, overseer
of works at builciing of Baghdad,
17; road of (W. B.), 27; his
tomb and quarter of (E. B.),
160, 190-2, 197, 280, 282, 334,
349 > 353 -

Abu-Ja'far (the Caliph Mansfir),
mill, 142.

Abu-Ja'far az-Zammim, 191,

Abu l^abisah Gate, 150.

Abu- 1 -* Abbas, quadrangle, 126.

Abu-l-Faraj, 338.

Abu-l-Fida, 340.

Abu- 1 - Jawn, bridge, 128, 129.

Abu-l-Kasim, mill, 63.

Abu-l-Khasib, the chamberlain,
227.

Abu-l-Ward, market, 60.

Abu-Muslim, 127.

Abu-n-N adr,or Abu N asr H ishim,
215.

Abu Sa'd of Ntshipar, 100.

358

Index

Abu Suwayd, al Jixtd, archway,
130.

Abu ‘Ubayd, the Barmecide, 206.

Abwib-al-Hadid, 215.

Abydos, 285.

*Adud-ad-Dawlah, 103, 104, 205,
319, 322; his palace, 234-8;
garden and canal, 235-7 ; his
treasurer, 259.

*Adud-ad-Din, palace, 97.

*Adudi Hospital, 45» 4 ^» I03“5s
342, 346.

Ahmad ibn *Ali, al-Khattb Bagh-
didt, 323.

Ahmad ibn al-Khasib, 86, 223,226.

Alimad Ibn Hanbal and his tomb,
112, 158, 165-7, 350-

Ahmad ibn Nasr, 215.

Ahmad Jalayr, Sultan, 345.

'Ajami Fief, 116, 292, 296.

'Ajami Tower, 292, 34I-3*

Ajurr, Darb (E. B.), 282.

Ajurr, Darb (W. B.), 84.

‘Akd-al-Mustani* and *Akd-az-
Zarridin, 284-8.

*Akkt, arcade, 130.

Ak-Kuyunli Dynasty, 345.

'Akr (castle), 83.

'Alt, Caliph, 2, 154, 320, 322;
shrine of the Mintakah, 90.

'Ali-ar-Ridi, Imdiri, tomb, 147.

'Alt ibn-al-Furit, 221.

'Alt ibn Jabalah, 97.

'Alt Muktafi, Caliph, 195, 252-4,
260 ; his tomb, 120, 195.

Alid insurrection at Medinah, 15.

Alkali Bridge, 75.

Alp Arsldn, 297, 298, 322.

Amid, 251.

Amtn, Caliph, and the first siege
of Baghdad, 32,33, 43, 44,

1 1 2, 245, 303, 306-10 ; his kiosk
at KalwidhH, 295, 307 ; his
tomb, 161-5, 194-

'Ammir, Gate, 226, 227.
'Ammuriyah, or Amorium, 275.
'Amr-ar-Rumi, street, 220.

'Amr ibn Sim'iLn, 91.

'Amud Canal, 62-4.

Anbar Bridge, Canal, Gate, and
Garden, 55, 111,130-4, ^07,310.
Anbdr Road, 55, 304.

Anbdr, town, 5, 12, 73, 194.
Anbirite Mosque, 61.

Ancient Market, Quarter, 90.
Angle Bastion, 292.

Ansir Bridge and Tank, 222, 223,
225.

Arcades of the Round City, 25, 26,
44-

Arch and Archway. See also
under Tdk.

Archway, Gate of the, 218.
Archway of the Artificer and of
the Armourer, 284-8.

Archway of the Harrdnian, 90,
91, 96.

'Artb, continuator of Tabart, 331.
Armour in Firdus Palace, 257.
Armourers' Archway, 286-8.
Armoury in the Round City, 31.
Arrayan, Spanish for myrtle,
271.

Arrow-flight, distance of, 285.
Artificer Archway, 284-6.
Ashmuni, 209.

'Askar-al-Mahdt (Rusifah), 42,
189.

Asmi, palace of, 218.

Ass, Cupola of the (E. B.), 254.
Ass, Mound of the (W. B.), 78.
'Atikah Quarter, 90.

'Atiktyah Quarter, 139, 140.

'Afsh, ‘thirst,' not ‘famine,’ in
name of market, 224.

'Att^b, great-grandson of Omay-
yah, 138.

'Attibiyah, or 'Attiblyin Quarter,

Index

and the *Attibi silks, 137, 138,
333, 336.

'Attiriyin (Perfumers), 272*

*Awn, the Alid, his tomb, 352.
'Ayishah Khinum, her tomb, 351.
•Aiaj Gate, 285, 287, 290, 296-9.
Azhar ibn Zuhayr, Fief of, 59.

Bib Abraz, 171-6, 228, 284-8.
Bib Abu Kabisah, 1 50.
Bib-ad-Dawlah, 24.
Bib-ad-Dawwimit, 276.
Bib-adh-Dhahab, 31.

Bibak, son of Bahram, 83.

Bibak, the heretic, 237.
Bib-al-*Ammah, 225-9, 274-6.
Bib-al-ArKi (or Arji), 84,
Bib-al-*Atabah, 274-6.
Bib-al-Azaj, 285, 287, 290, 290-9.
Bib-al-Badriyah, 270, 272.
Bib-al-Basaliyah, 281, 283, 290-7.
Bib-al-Bustin (E. B,), 276.
Bib-al-Bustin (W. B.), no, in.
Bib-al-Firdis, 250.
Bib-al-Gharabah, 265, 266.
Bib-al-Hadid, in, 127, 128, 163,
312, 316.

Bib-al-^albah, 281, 291-3, 343.
Bib-al-^Iaram, 276.
Bib-al-Hujrah, 259.

Bib-al-Jisr, 178, 198.
Bib-al-Karkh, 63.

Bib-al-Katfah (Zubaydtyah), 113.
Bib-al-Khalaj, 281, 294.
Bib-al-Khissah, 270.
Bib-al-Khuluj, 294.
Bib-al-Maritib, 271, 276, 277.
Bib-al-Mu'azzam, 170, 192, 225,
281, 282, 348, 352-4.
Bib-al-Wustinl, 281, 288, 348.
Bib-al-Yisirlyah, 15 1.

Bib *Ammir, 226, 227.

Bib 'Ammirfyah, 275.

Bib Anbir, 55, ill, 130-4,307,310.

359

Bib-ash-Sha*tr (Lower), 61, 95,
I79‘

Bib-ash- Sha'ir (Upper), 139.
Bib-asJi-Shim, gate of Round
City, 17.

Bib-ash-Shim, village, 203.

Bib - ash - Shammisiyah, 170-5,
198, 199, 201, 203, 206, 219.
Bib-ash-Sharki, 281, 294, 349.
Bib-as-Safariyah, '288.
Bib-as-Sultin, 266, 281, 282,

341.

Bib-at-Tik, 178, 181, 218, 320.
Bib-at-Talism, 281, 291, 348, 349.
Bib-at-Tibn, 115, 123, 160.
Bib-a?-Zafariyah, 281, 283, 288-95.
Bib Baradin, 170-3, 200, 204,
206.

Bib Basrah, 17 ; Quarter of, 46,
89“98, 336.

Bib Bin, 287.

Bib Kalwidhi, 179, 271,281,283,
290-7, 342, 355.

Bib Katfah Mushkir, 229.

Bib Katrabbul, 113, 313.

Bib Khurisin, of* Mukharrinji,

170, 305.

Bib Khurisin, of New Baghdad,
281, 288.

Bib Khurisin, of Round City, 17^
24, loi, 105.

Bib Kifah, 17, 59.

Bib Muhawwal, 46, 146-9; Quar-
ter of, 318.

Bib Mukayyar, 224, 22.g.

Bib Mukharrim, 225.

Bib Nahhisin or Nakhkhistn,

68 .

Bib Nasr, 215.

Bib Nibi, 272, 274-6.

Bib Sik-ad-Dawwibb, 210, 227,
Bib Sitk-ath-Thalithah, 95,
171-31 I 79 r 197, Sii 9 » ^20, 228,
266, 268, 277, 283.

360

Index

Bib Sik-at-Tamr, 265, 266.

Bib 'Ullayin, 276.

Badr Gate and Badrtyali Market,
270-2.

Badr the Wazir and the Badriyah
Mosque, 36.

Biduriyi District, 14, 50, 51, 315.

Baghdad, advantages of site, 14 ;
Assyrian city of this name, 9 ;
city described by Ya*kubr and
Ibn Serapion, 314; by Istakhri
and Ibn Hawkal, 319 ; by Khatib,
323; by Ibn Jubayr, 332; by
Yikut, 335 ; by author of Mari-
sid, 344 ; by Ibn Batutah, 346 ;
by Hamd- Allah, 347 ; by Taver-
nier, 348 ; by N iebuhr and J ones,
352 ; Eastern and Western
Quarters, 169 ; etymology of
Baghdad, 10 ;■ orientation of,
arbitrary, 315 ; Sassanian Bagh-
dad, 12 ; sieges, first, 303, 306-
10 ; second, 31 1-4 ; third, 327 ;
fourth, 328-30; fifth, 340-3;
size of city, 321, 323-6; wall
of Musta'in, 312, 318; wall of
Mustazhir, 327.

Baghiyin, 108.

Bahi-ad-Din, biographer of Sala-
. din, 298.

BahlCil Dinah, 350.

Bijisra, 174.

Bajkam the Turk, 155.

Bakeiy^, public, 31,

Bakir Aghi, the Janissary, 345.

Banafsah, the slave gii*l, 79.

Baniwari, 67.

Bani Zurayk Bridge, 75, 76, 89.

Binujah or Binukah Balace, 226.

Baraddn Bridge and Road, 206,
215.

Baradin Cemetery, 204, 205.

Baradan Gate, 170-3, 200, 204,

206.

Baradin, town, 174.

Barithi, 1 53-6 ; mosque, 320.
Birimmi, 9.

Barley Gate, Lower, 61, 95, 179.
Barley Gate, Upper, 139.

Barley Street, 95.

Barmak and the Barmecides, 37-
40 ; fall of, 306; their fiefs, 200;
and palaces, 206.

Basaliyah Gate and Quarter, 281,
283, 290-7.

Basisiri, 36.

Basil plant, 271-2.

Basrah Gate, 17,

Basrah Gate highroad, 75, 355.
Basrah Gate Mosque, 332.

Basrah Gate Quarter, 46, 89-98,
336.

Basrah t6vvn, 5, 16.

Batitiyi Canal, 55, m, 123-5,
132, 133-

Batrak and Batrik, 145.

Battikh, Dir, 85, 342.

Bayiwari, 67.

Bayn-al-Kasrayn, 218.

Bayraz Gate, 287.

Bayt-as-Sittini, 235.

Bazzizin Canal, 52, 53, 63, 77, 78 :

(lower reach), 91.

Belvedere of Badr Gate, 273.
Belvedere of Garden Gate, 276.
Belvedere of Halbah Gate, 292,
Belvedere of Mustansiriyah, 268.
Benjamin of Tudela, 332.
Bimaristin *Adudi, 45, 46, 103-5,
319, 342, 346; Market of, 105.
Bimiristan Bridge, 62.

Bimiristin of the Mustansiriyah,
268.

Bimiristin Tutushi, 296-8.

Birds, mechanical, in gold and
silver, 256.

Bir Maymun, 194,

Bishr-ul-yifl, 158.

Index

Bitumen used in Hamm^ms, 224,
335-

Biyabraz Gate, 287.

Black Sheep Turkoman d)masty,
^ 345-

Bfue tiles, 36, 79.

Bohadin, biographer of Saladin,
298.*

Booksellers* Market, 92.

Bowshot, distance of a, 285.
Bracelet Street, 108.

Bricks, Assyrian, in Baghdad, 9.
Bricks, size of, used by Mansur, 19.
Bricks, Street of (E. B.), 282.
Bricks, Street of (W.B.), S4.
Bridge at Harb^, 338.

Bridge at Kasr Sibur, 185.

Bridge Gate, 178, 198.

Bridge, masonry. See Kantarah.
Bridge, modem, 185, 186.

Bridge of Boats or Jisr, 42 ; Upper,
107, 118, 132-6, 177-86, 198;
Main, 102-9, 177-86, 217-20;
Lower, 95, 177-86.

Bridge of the Date Palms, 148.
Bridge of the Palaces, 87, 90,
183-6, 265.

Bridge of the Street of Rocks,
150.

Bridge Works, Offices of, 108.
Broitd, 156.

Buk District and Canal, 14, 50.
Bukhariot Mosque, 134.

Buran, wife of Mamun, 246-9.
Burj-al-*Ajami, 292, 341-3.
Burjultiniyah or Burjulfmiyin Sub-
urb, 108.

Bustdn-ar-Rakkah, 261.

Bustdn Bridge, 75, 76.

Bustdn Hafs, 189.

Busti'in Zdhir, 176, 219, 320, 332,
238, 340.

Butchers' Market, 77,

Butter Bridge, 148.

361

Buyid Palaces, 178, 204, 231-40,
282, 319-22.

Buyids, period of their supremacy,
302, 318-22.

Cages, Street of, 134.

Caliphs, period of the great, 302.
Caliphs, tombs of the Abbasid.
193-

Camels and elephants, 237.

Canal. See Nahr.

Canal-diggers* Quarter, 78.

Canal dug by *Adud-ad-Dawlah,

236.

Canal of the Palaces, 177.

Canal of the Road, 285.

Canals, Gate of, 294,

Cara Capi, 294, 349.

Catholicos, monastery of, 210.
Catholicos or Patriarch of the
Kestorians, 208, 213.

Cemetery. See under Makbarah
and Mukibir.

Cemetery of the Convent Gate,
98-100.

Cemetery of the Harb Gate, 1 58,

159-

Cemetery of the Kun^sah, 155.
Cemetery of the Martyrs, 158,
164.

Cemetery of the Straw Gate, 160-5.
Cemetery of the Syrian Gate, 130,

131-

Cemetery of Wardiyah, 287-8.
Cemetery, Old, 153.

Central area of Round City, 18,
27, 28.

ChahAr SCij Quarter, 136, 137.
336.

Chalk Road, 134.

Chancery Office, 31.

Chick-pea broth, 82.

China, Christians in, 213.
Chinese goods, market of, 197.

362

Index

Christian Churches in Baghdad,
209-212.

Christian Quarter (E, B.), 207-10,
214, 232.

Christians under the Caliphate,
207-9.

Clay Castle, 201.

Clepsydra or clock, 267.
Clothes-Merchants’ Canal and
Market, 52, 53, 63, 77 , 78, 9 i-
Cobblers’ Market, 77.

Conduit. See Nahr,

Conduit of the Reed-Hut, 112.
Conduits to Round City, 29.
Constantine Porph3n:ogenitus, 255.
Convent. See Dayr.

Convent Gate, 99,

Convent of the Foxes, 99.

Cooked meats, sellers of, and their
Canal, 53, 78, 79 , 81-4, 336 .
Cookmen’s Quarter, 91.
Coppersmiths* Gate, 68.

Cotton House, 84.

Cotton Market Palace, 265.
Cotton-merchants’ Wharf, 18 1.
Cross of the Crusaders, 274, 275.
Ctesiphon (Maddin), 37, 253, 254.
Cupolas, Monastei^ of the, 118.

Dabbdghin, 156.

Dabik embroidery, 257.

Dajdj Canal, 53, 77, 78; lower
reach of, 91.

Dakik, mistake for Ra^k, 123.
Damascus, 2-5.

bdr-al-Aniir (Buyid Palaces), 322.
Ddr-al-Battikh, 85, 342.
Ddr-al-Fil, 270, 271.
Ddr-al-IJasan of the Golden
Palaces, 195.

Ddr-al-Jaw?, 91.

Ddr-al-Kattdn, 35.

Ddr-al-Kazz, 137, 139.
Ddr-al-Khildfah, 233, 243, 314.

Ddr-al-Kutn (W. B.), 84.
Ddr-al-Kutuniyah (E.B.), 265.
Ddr-al-Mamlakah, 233. See
Ddr-as-Sultdn.
Ddr-al-Mudhahhabah, 195,
Ddr-ar-Rakik, 123, 124. • *

Ddr-ar-Rayhdniym, 266, 271-4,

327. *

Ddr-ar-Rikhdm, 120.

Ddr-ar-Rum (E. B.), 207-10 ; not
Constantinople, 214,
Ddr-ar-Rumiyin (W. B.), 149.
Ddr-ash-Shajarah, 256, 257.
Ddr-ash-Shdtibiyah or ash-Shiti-
yah, 353.

Dir-as-Saltanah (of the Tij), 253,
262.

Ddr-as-Sayyidah, 266, 272.
Ddr-as-Sultdn, or as-Sultdniyah,
or as-Saltanah (Buyid Palaces),
178, 204, 231-40, 319-22.
Ddr-a{-Tawdwis, 259.

Ddr Faraj, 201.

Ddr Ja‘far, 86.

Ddr Ka'yilbah, 153.

Ddr Khdtun, 265, 272.

Ddr Sa*id-al- 9 arashi, 221, 222.
Ddr Sa‘id-al-Khatib, 129.
Darb-al-Ajurr (E. B.), 282.
Darb-al-Ajurr (W. B.), 84,
Darb-al-AHds, 134.
Darb-al-Hijdrah, 150, 151, 308.
Darb-al-Kassdrtn, 134.
Darb-al-Kayydr, 224.
Darb-al-Lawztyah, 286.
Darb-al-Mas'dd, 297.
Darb-al-Munirah, 282.
Darb-an-Nahr, 285.
Darb-an-Ndrah, 134.
Darb-ash-Sha*ir, 95.
Darb-at-Tawil, 221.

Darb-Siwdr, 108.

I Darb-Sula3niidn, 108.
i Dargdh-i-Khdtdn, 273.

Index

363

Darmdlis Monastery, 202.
Darribit, 63.

Dastab{lyah melons, 258.
Date-market, Gate and Palace,
265, 266.

*Date-palm, Bridge of, 148.
Date-palm plantations, 154.
Dates fn Caliph’s garden, 257.
DMd, Tank of, 223.

DMd, uncle of Manstir, 28.
Daww 4 rat-al-Himir, 78.
Daylamite body-guard, 235.
Daylamites. See Buyids.
Dayr-al-‘Adh^ri, 83.
Dayr-al-Asiyah, 212.
Dayr-al-Kib 4 b, 118.
Dayr-ar-Riim, 207-10, 214.

Dayr Ashmfini, 209.
Dayr-ath-Tha'dlib, 99, 210.
Dayr-az-Zuraykiyah, 212.

Dayr Darm^lis, 202.

Dayr Durti, ii8.

Dayr Jlithilik, 210.

Dayr Jurjis, 210.

Dayr Midyin, 209.

Dayr S^bfir, 210.

Dayr Sam^ll^i, 202.

Dayr Sarkhis, 210.

Dayr Zandaward, 21 1, 296, 297,
Degrees, Gate of, 271, 276, 277,
Dhiri*. See Ell.
Dhii-l-Yamfnayn, 119.

DihHns, 128.

Dimmimi Bridge, 73.

Ditch of Round City, 21.

Divide, Triple, on Miisi Canal,
176.

Diw^n-as-Sadakah, 59.

DiwUns or State Offices, 31, 235.
Dogs’ Canal, 53, 69, 74, 78*

Dogs’ Fief, 78.

Dole given at Abu Pantfah Shrine,
192.

Dome of the Ass, 260.

Domes, the Little (Quarter of
E. B.), 289. See also Cupolas.
Dried-fruit sellers, 266,
Dromedary House, 59.

Dujayl Canal, earlier and later,
29, 48, 49 , 53 , 338.

Dujayl highroad and its canal,
III, 127-31.

Dukkin-al-Abn^, 127.
Dffi^b-i-Bakal, 342,

Dffiib water-wheels, 190, 331.
Diir, palaces (E. B.), 200.

D£ir, town, 174.

Durti Monastery, 118.

Dyke and Ditch of the Round
City, 21.

Dyke of Muizz-ad-Dawlah, 232,

233, 284, 319 -

Dyke of the Tij Palace, 254, 261.

Eastern Gate (New Baghdad),
281, 294, 349.

Eastern Quarter ofWest Baghdad,
S 3 , 77 , 90, 91 -

Elephant-house at Badr Gate,
270, 271.

Elephant-house in Tlij Palace,
256.

Elephants used in Baghdad, 237,
Ell, Hdshimite, 18 ; of twenty-
three inches, 324.

Epitomist of Ibn Haw^l, i6i.
EpitomistofYiMt. SeeMarisid.
Euphrates, course of, during Mid-
dle Ages, 7.

Euphrates, waters, how used for
irrigation, 48.

Executions on Bridges of Boats,
180.

Fadl Canal, 175, 176, 200, 202,

234.

Fadl ibn Rabi* and his Palace,
68, 143, 197-

3^4

Index

Fadl ibu 3 ahl, 245, 246.

Fa^, the Barmecide, 200.

Faidiri, 338, 341.

Fam-as-Silh, 246.

Faraj the Mamluk, 201.

Fardah (Harbour), Lower, 51, 52,
74, 85-8, 172, 184, 355.

Fardah (Harbour), Upper, 50, 108,

1 1 8, 122-6, 139, 172.

Fardah of Ja*far, 85.

Farrishes, Fief of the, 149.

F^timah, granddaughter of MMik
Shdh, 273.

Fatimite Caliph prayed for in
Baghdad, 36.

Fief. See Katfah.

Fief, Gate of the, 113.

Fief of Dogs, 78.

Fief of Muhijir and of Musayyib,
59 -

Fief of Mushkir, 229, 249, 275.

Fief of Rabf, 58, 123, 143, 197, 322.

Fief of Rayasinah, 61, 95.

Fief of Sharawi, 59.

Figure of magic horseman wind-
vane, 31.

Figures of horsemen in Palace of
Caliph, 257.

Firdus, meaning of, 250.

Firdus Palace, 171, 177, 219, 225,
228, 229, 243, 250, 251, 257, 277,
318.

Fires in Baghdad (a. H. 292), 218 ;
(a. h. 450), 238; (A, H. 440, 467,
551), 296.

Firewood market, 197.

Four Markets, 136, 137, 336.

Fowls’ Canal, 53-7, 77, 78, 91.

Foxes, Monastery of, 99, 210.

Freedmen’s Stables, 59.

Fruit-market, 85, 342.

Fullers, Street of, 134.

Garden Bridge, 75, 76.

Garden Gate (E. B.), 276.

Garden Gate (W. B.), no, iii.
Garden of 'Adud - ad - Dawlah,

235-7.

Garden of Hafs, 189.

Garden of Tihir, no, in. * *
Garden of the Rakkah, 261.
Garden. See also Busti%.

Gate. See Bib.

Gate of Darkness, 294.

Gate of Degrees, 296.

Gates of New Baghdad, 280.

Gate of the Horse-market, 220,
227.

Gate of the Portico or Gallery, 296.
Gate of the Sultan, 225.

Gate of the Tuesday Market (E.
B.), 9 S. 171-3, 179, 197, 219,
220, 228, 266, 268, 277, 283.
Gates of Palace Wall (E. B.), 265.
Gates of the Round City, 20, 22-8;
their orientation, 41 ; their gate-
houses, 45.

George, Monastery of Saint, 210.
Gerirah, 295.

Ghilib, market of, 67.

Ghalwah (arrow-flight), 285.
Ghimish, road of, 139.

Gharabah Gate, 265, 266.

Gharib (or Ghurayb), 86.

Ghizin Khin, 341.

Ghazzili, 298.

Ghitrif, arcade of, 130.

Ghulims (Pages) of the Caliph,
26 ; of the Chamberlain, 123.
Girdle, shrine of the, 90.

Golden Palace, or Palace of the
Golden Gate, 19, 30-3, 242-5.
309, 318.

Goldsmiths’ Market, 218.
Goldwire-drawers, 272.

Grapes of Zandaward, 297.

Great Road of the Mukhairim,
219, 224, 225, 255.

Index

365

Grecian windows, 25.

Greek ambassadors from Con-
stantine Porphyrogenitus, 225,

255-7, 323.

Greek envoy, 65, 142, 144.

Creeks, House of the (E. B.), 207.
Greeks, House of the (W. B.), and
Bridge of the Greek Woman,

149*

Green Dome, Palace of the, 31-3.
Green Domes over gateways of
Round City, 24,

Guztdah^ history, 347.

Habl, (cord) measure, 326.

Hddt, Caliph, tomb, 193, 194.
Hafs, garden of, 189.
yafs ibn ‘Othm^ln, palace, 108.
Hajj4j-al-WasJf, 226.

^lajjdj, Viceroy of *Irik, 20.

Halaj for Khalaj, 294.

Halbah Gate, 281, 291-3, 343.
^albah or polo-ground, 292.

Hall of the Sultanate, 262.

Hall of the WazJrs, 259.

Hallij, tomb of, 160.

Halls of the Rayh^niytn, 273.
IJamd-Allah Mustawft, 347.
Hamdilnah, 201 «

Hint, Road and Palace of, 133.
Hantfah Suburb (W, B,), 117.
Haramayn or Hartm, Palace Pre-
cincts (E. B.), 263, 314, 319,
331 ; size of, 334.

Harasht, 222.

Harb Gate and Bridge, 1 12.
HarbGateCemetery, 113,158,159.
!^arb Gate Road and Canal, 124,
126.

IJarb ibn *Abd Allah, io8, 1 09.
Harb Quarter or IJarbiyah, 107-
28. 30s, 333, 33S ; later, and its
mosque, 125; canals of, 49,
53 - 6 .

HarbiL Bridge, 338.

Harbour, Lower, 51, 52, 74, 85-8,
172, 1S4, 355*

Harbour, Upper, 50, 108, 118,
123-6, 139, 172.

Harim. See Haramayn.

Hanm of Tihir, 119-21, 327 ;

tombs here, 195.

Hirithiyah, 210.

Harr^ni Archway, 90, 91, 96.
Harthamah, 43, 307-10.
Hiriin-ar-Rashid, 32, 34, 202, 218,
243-5, 305, 306, 350; his tomb,

147, 194.

Plartlrt rebels, 1 54,

9asan Buzurg, 345.

Hasan ibn Kahtabah, suburb,
140.

yasan ibn Sahl, 96, 243-6,
250.

^asani Palace, 171, 328, 229, 250,
264, 266, 275, 277, 3XS.
Hdshimtyah, 5, 6.
yattln battle, 274.
Hawdnit-al-'Alldfin, 225,

Jiawd Ansdr, Ddiid, and Hay-
Idnah, 223.

Hawd ‘Atik, 150.

Hawr (Lagoon), 8.

Hayianah Suburb (W. B.), 146.
Hayiinah Tank (E. B.), 223,
Haymarket, 225.

Haytham, market, 136.

Helena (HaylAnah), 146, 223,
Hellespont, 285.

Helpers (the Ansilr), 222, 223.
Hilil ibn Muhsin, 182,

IJillah, bridge of boats at, 185.
Htrah, 5.

History of Baghdad by Khajib,

323*

Horse-gallop (distance), 285.
Horse Guards Barracks, 23, 26,
27, 30.

366

Index

Horseman, magic (wind-vane), 31.

Horse Market, 227.

Horse Market Gate, 220.

Horsemen, figures of, in Caliph’s
Palace, 357.

Hospital, Buyid fAdudx), 45, 46,
^03-Sy 319, 342, 346-

Hospital, Market of the, 105.

Hospital of the MustansMyah,
268.

Hospital, Old (W. B.), and Bridge,
62,

Hospital, Tutushi, 296-8;

Hottse. See Dir and Kasr.

Hujrah, or Halls of the Rayhini-
ytn, 273.

Hfiiagii, 105, 185, 193, 352, 293,
340-3-

IJumayd ibn ‘Abd - al • ^amid
Palace, 95, 96, 137.

Humayd ibn Kahtabah, 15, 16,
140, 147, 148.

Husayn Pishi, 351, 352.

Hujamiyah, 206.

Hyaena Gate, 276.

Ibn Abi ‘Awn, palace and road,
124.

Ibn Abi DiM, Wazir, 189.

Ibn Abi Maryam, 141.

Ibn-al-Athir, 331, 340.

Ibn-al-Furit the historian, 343.

Ibn-al-Furit, Wazir, Palace of,
221.

Ibn-al-Khasib, palace, 86, 223,
226.

Ibn-al-Muttalib, mosque, 87,

Ibn Batitah, 346.

Ibn Hanbal, tomb, 112, 158, 165-7,
350 -

Ibn Hawkal, 319-22 ; his epitomist,
161.

Ibn Hubayrah, town' and castle, 6.

Ibn Ishik, tomb, 193.

Ibn Jubayr, 332-5; mistake in
text, 88.

Ibn Khallikin, 338.

Ibn Mihk, 204.

Ibn MuWah, 220.

Ibn Raghbin, mosque, 61, 95.* ^

Ibn Razin Quarter, 285.

Ibn Rustah, 314. *

Ibn Sahl, 245.

IbnSerapion, 47, 303,314; mistake
about canals, 175.

Ibrahim, the Alid pretender, 16.

Ibrihim-al-Harbi, tomb, 133.

Ibrihim, Caliph, uncle of Mamun,

96.

Ibrihim ibn Dhakwin, 91.

tl-Khin dynasty, 345.

*Imid-ad-Din, 330.

Inscription in Bektish Takiyah,
350-

Inscription in Mosque of Manshr,

35-

Inscription of the Mustansiriyah
College and Mosque, 269.

Inscription on false Tomb of
Zubaydah, 351.

Inscription on IJalbah Gate, 291.

Insurrections in Baghdad : (in A. H.
406, 422, and 447), 95 ; (in A.H.
443), 163, 164; (in A.H. 488),
84.

Inundation of Tigris (in a.h. 330),
44 ; (in A.H. 466), 104, 159, 233,
251, 254, 283 ; (in A.H. 554), 104,
159, 234, 286, 291 ; (in A.H. 604),
295; (in a . h .6 i 4),89, 97, 121,
159; in time of Musta‘sim, 46.

Iron Gate, its Road and Bridge
(W.B.), HI, 127, 128, 312, 316;
garden at, 163.

Iron Gates (E. B.), 207, 215.

Iron gates of Wall of Round City,
20, 21.

'tsUbad, 194.

Index

367

*lsk Canal, 5, 44, 49-56, 81-94,
151-3, 156, 157, 331, 355; its

bridges, 71-6.

‘Isl. ibn Maryam (Jesus son of
Mary), 73.

nephew of Caliph Mansdr,
16, 69, 72.

*Isi, sdh of Ja'far, 85, 86.

‘Isd, uncle of Caliph Mansdr, 28,
69, 72, 143 ; his palace and
fief, 146.

Isfah§.n, 195.

IsMk ibn Ibrihim, the Tihirid,

Ishik of Mosul, 6l.

IsMkiyah Canal, 48.

Ismiil I, Shih of Persia, 345.
Istabl-al-Mawli, 59.

Istakhri, 319-22.

ItHkh the Turk, 226.
Tzz-ad-Dawlah, 234.

Jabal Hamiin, 9.

Jacobite Christians in Baghdad
207 ; their church (E. B.), 209.
Jadidfor Hadid, iii.

Ja*far, market, 200, 201.

Ja*far, son or grandson of Mansfir,
86, 109, 1 14.

Ja*far the Barmecide, 180, 200,

243-5, 306.

Ja'far-al-Akbar, son of Caliph
Mansfir, 160, 164.

Ja’fart Canal, 175.

Ja*farl Palace, 243-5.
Jalil-ad-Dawlah, 161-4, 238.
Jalayr dynasty, 345.

J^mi'-al-Kasr, 243, 252, 253, 269,
27S, 317, 320, 324, 338, 343*
Jimi‘-al-Kati ah, 115, 116.
Jdmi'-ar-Mah(^, Rusifah, 188, 196,
280, 346, 354, 356*

Jdmi*-as- Sultan, 240, 282, 326,

339,346.

Jdmi* of the Round City (Mosque
of Mansfir), afterwards called
the Jimi* of the Basrah Gate,
19, 30, 33-7, 346, 356-

Jimi* or Great Mosque for the
Friday prayers, 125, and see
under Mosque.

Janih, a belvedere, 32.

Jartb, measure, 324.

Jarjariyi, 9.

Jithiltk, monastery of, 210.

Jithilik or Catholicos of the
Nestorians, 208.

JawsakMuhdith (New Kiosk), 257.

Jawz, Dir, 91.

Jawz for Jawn, 129.

Jazzirtn (butchers), 77.

Jews* Bridge and Fief, 150,

Jisr or Bridge of Boats (q. v.), 177.

Jones, Commander F., 349.

Judge’s Garden Quarter, 287-9.

Juha3T Garden Quarter, 296.

Junayd, tomb, 79.

Jurjis (Saint George) Monastery,
210.

Ka*b, house of, 77.

Kabr-an-Nudhfir, 205.

Kabsh-wa-l-Asad Quarter, iii,
133-

Kidir, Caliph, 125.

Kidiriyah Dervishes, 348.

Kihir, Caliph, 231 ; his tomb,
195 ; garden of, 258.

Kahtabah family, 16.

Kahtabah Road, 140,, 141.

Kiim, Caliph, 99; his daughter
marries Tughril Beg, 239.

Kal'ah (castle) in Western Bagh-
dad, 342.

Kalliyin Canal and Quarter, 53)

78, 79. 81-4, 336-

^alliyin or Kallitfn Canal of
Zubaydiyah, 116.

368

Index

KalwidM Gate (E. B.), I79, 271,
281, 283, 290-7, 342, 355.
Kalwidhd Rakkah, palace,. 295,

307.

KalwidM Town and District, 14,
50, 175, 293-7; mosque, 320.
Kandt (watercourse), 56.
Kantarah, a masonry bridge, 56,

177.

Kantarah Abu-l-Jawn, 128, 129.
Kantarah-al-'Abbds (E. B.)j 225.
Kantarah-al-*Abbis (W. B.), 149.
Kantarah-al-Ansir, 222.
Kantarah-al-*Atikah, 50, 54,60, 93.
Kantarah-al-Bustin, 75, 76.
Kantarah-al-Jadtdah or al-Hadi-
thah, 52, 91-3.
Kantarah-al-Ma"badi, 75.
Kantarah-al-Maghid, 75, 84.
Kantarah-al-Muhaddithin, 76,
Kantarab-al-Ushnin, 75.
Kantarah-al-Yahud, 1 50,
Kantarah-al-Ydsiriyah, 74, 76, 151,
152, 3 I 3 » 321.

Kantarah-ar-Riimtyah, 149.
Kantarah-ar-Rumm^n, 75.
Kantarah-ash-Shawk, 53, 74-9.
Kantarah-as-Siniydt, 148.
Kantarah-at-Tabbanin, 124, 126.
Kantarah-az-Zayy^ttn, 74-6.
Kantarah-az-Zubd, 148.

Kantarah Bani Zurayk, 7$, 76, 89.
Kantarah Barad^n, 206, 215,
Kantarah Btmdrist^n, 62.
Kantarah Darb-al-Hijdrah, 150.
Kantarah Dimmimi, 73.

Kantarah RuM-al-Batrik, 148.
Kantarah RuM Umm-Ja'far, 113.
Karih Abu-sh-Shahm, 289.
Karih-al-KicIi, 287-9.

Karih Ibn Razin, 285.

KarS.h Juhayr, 296.

Kar^h, meaning garden, 286.
Kar 3 .h>Zafar, 288.

Kara-Kuyunli dynasty, 345.

Karihlik or Karolog Kapi, 294.

Kaiir Palace, 102.

Karchiaka, 66.

Karkh Gate, 63.

Karkh, meaning of, 63 ; namefoi^
Western Baghdad, 320.

Karkh Suburb, inner anS outer,
46, 63, 77, 304, 336 ; its canals,
52-6 ; limit of, position, and size,
64, S3, 84; markets of, 65-8;
these removed to Eastern
Baghdad, 222.

Karkhdy^ Canal, 29, 52-6, 67-80,

149-53, 336.

Kasr. See Palace.

Kasr-al-K^mil, 253.

Kasr-al-Khuld, 32, 95, 101-5, 242,
243, 245, 305, 308, 318.

Kasr-ath-Thurayyd, 176,227,250,
251, 307.

Kasr-at-T^j (earlier), 39, 171, 228,
229, 243, 250-6, 318; garden,
258; great hall, 259; palace
burnt, 260.

Kasr-at-Taj (later), 261, 278, 327.

Kasr-at-Tin, 201.

Kasr Firdus, 171, 177, 219, 225,
228, 229, 243, 250, 251, 257,
277, 318.

Kasr Humayd, 95, 96, 137.

Kasrisa, 86, 87, 185 ; and Quar-
ter, 94, 195.

Kasr JaYari, 243-5,

Kasr Mahdi (Rusdfah), 42, 170,
189, 196, 305.

Kasr Mayd^n Klidlis, 296, 297.

Kasr Rakkah Kalvvddhd, 295.

Kasr Sabur, 185.

Kasr Umm Habib, 197.

Kasr Umm JaYar, 103.

Kasr Wadd^h (E. B ), 198.

KasrWaddih (W. B.), 58, 92,

Kass or Kuss, garden, 132.

Index 369

Katfah-al-'Ajamt, Fief and Quar-
ter, 1 16, 292, 296.
Kati'ah-al-Farr 4 shin, 149.
Katfah-al-Kilib, 78.
Kati*ah-an-Nasiri, 82.

'Ifcatfah Muhijir, 59,

Katt'ah Mushktr, 229.

Katfah* of Zubaydah, 54, 1 1 3-7,
124.

Katfah or Fief, Quarters in W. B.

and in E. B., 1 16.

Katrabbul Bridge, ii 3 ~ 5 > 123.
Katrabbul District, 14, 50-51,
ii 3 » 315-

Katrabbul Gate, 113, 313.

Kattin, Ddr, 35.

Kitiil Nahrawin Canal, 48.
Ka*y^bah, the gardener, 153.
Kizim, Imim, 161.

Kizimayn shrines, 158-65, 334,
342, 343, 350, 351.

Kazz, D 4 r, 137, 139.

Khadariyin, 197.

Khafl^h, 63.

Khikint, 321.

Khalaj (or Khuluj) Gate, 281,
294.

Khalaj Turks and the Khiljt
Sultans, 294.

Kh^lid, general, 12.

Khlllid ibn Barmak, 37-40, 200.
Kh§.lid, Market, 201,

KhaliJ or Canal, 294.

Kh^lis, 174-6, 236, 287.
Kham^rtaktn, 298.

Khin-al-Khayl, 255,
Khdn-an-NajMb, 59.

Khin 'Asim, 272.

Khandak, of Round City, 21*
Khandak T^hir, 51, 52, 54*6,
110-28, 355,

Khdnkah (Dervish convent) in
Tdthah, 79,

Kharrdztn (cobblers), 77

Khatib, his history of Baghdad,
323-6.

Khattibiyah, 134.

Khitun, Dir, 265, 272.

Khawr, 236.

Khayzurin Cemetery, 191-3, 226 ;
confused with Kuraysh Ceme-
tery, 193.

Khayzurin, wife of Caliph Mahdi,
192, 204.

Khilifah, Dir, 233, 243, 314.
Khudayr Market and Mosque,
Khudayriyah or Khadariyin,

173, 197, 198.

Khuld Gardens, 50.

Khuld Palace, 32, 95, 101-5, 242,
243, 245, 3 o 5 » 308, 318.

Khuld, square of, 200.

Khurisin Gate of East Baghdad,
170, 305.

Khurisin Gate of New Baghdad,
281, 288.

Khurisin Gate of Round City,
17, 24, loi, 105.

Khurisin Merchants’ Quarter, 77.
Khurisin Road, 217, 218.
Khuwirizmian Suburb, 128.
Khuzaymah ibn Khizim, 218.
Kilib (Dogs’) Canal, 53 , 69 , 74, 73.
Kilib (Dogs’) Fief, 78.

Kir or bitumen, 224.
iCiidb-ad-lHydrdt^ 21 1.
Kii&b-at-Fihrist^ 213 .

Kiwi Rimiyah, 25.

Kubaybit Quarter, 289.
IKubbat-al-Himir, 254.
Kubbat-al-Khadri Palace, 31.
Kubbin, 44, 46.

Kifah Gate of Round City, 17.
Kifah Gate Road, 57-^, 304,
35S-

Kifah Gate Square, 58, 59.
Kifah, town, 2, 5, 16.

' Kufic inscription (of a, H. 333), 350,

h

BACHDAD

37 °

Index

Kunisah Quarter, 1 50-3, 308.
Kftrah Canal, 233, 234.

Kuraysh Cemetery, 158; confused
with that of Kha)7zurin, 193.
Kurayyah Quarter (E. B*), 87-89,
297, 299> 355*

Kurayyah Quarter (W. B.), 333*
K^irij Canal, 233, 234, 251, 284.
Kum~as-Sarit, loi.

Kumah, 8, 9.

Kurr, measure, 82.
Kiit-al-'Amirah, 8.

Kuthd Canal, 49.

Kutn, Dir, 84.

Kuttib-al-Yatimi, 129. ^

Kutufti Suburb, 89, 94, 97, 98.
Kutuniyah, Dir, 265.

Lake of Firdis Palace, 250.
Lapislazuli tiles, 36.

Law-schools of the Mustansirtyah,

267-9*

Layth the Saffirid, 237.

Leopards, hunting-, 256.

Library of the Mustansiriyah,
267.

Library of the Rayhiniyin, 273.
Lions, tame, 256.

Long Street, 221.

Lower Bridge, 95, 177-86.

Maazan Capi, 348, 352-4.

Ma*badi Bridge, 75.

Mabkalah, 342.

Madiin (Ctesiphon) Palace, 37,
253» 254.

Midhariyi, 174.

Madinat-as-Salim (Baghdad), 10.
Madrasah-al-Mustansiriyah, 266-
70, 278, 399, 337, 346, 349.
Madrasah-an-Nizimiyah, 88, 267,
296-300, 326, 35S.
Madrasah-at-Tijtyah, 288.

Maghdad, Maghdin, &c., names
for Baghdad, 10.

Maghid Bridge, 75, 84.

Magian Cemetery, 193.

Mahdi, Caliph, 28, 42, 92, 143, 222,
226 ; his tomb, 193, 194.

Mahdi Canal, 175, 176, 202, 206.

Mahdi Mosque and Palace, 42,
170, 189, 196, 305*

Mahmid, Saljuk Sultan, 275.

Main Bridge, 102-9, 177-86, 217-
20.

Majlis-ash-Shu*ari, 218.

Makbarah Bib-ad-Dayr, 98-100.

Makbarah Kadimah, 153.

Milik Canal, 49.

Milik Shih, 100, 1 59, 162, 191, 239,
240, 288, 292, 298, 322, 326, 339,
340 ; his granddaughter, 273.

Milikiyah Cemetery, 204, 327.

Mamlakah, Dir, 233. See also
Buyid Palaces.

Mamun, Caliph, 43, 103, 237, 303,
306-10 ; his tomb, 195.

Mamuni Palace, 243-5.

Maminiyah Quarter, 245, 276, 284,
285, 290-3, 296-9, 297, 343.

Manjanik (catapults), 307, 313.

Mansir, Caliph, 4, 5, 9, 24, 38,
41, 65, 77 , 102, 237, 303 ; his
tomb, 194.

Mansur ibn 'Amrnir, 158.

Mansur Rishid, Caliph, 120, 204,
327 ; his tomb, 195.

Manzarah of Badr Gate, 273,

Manzarah of Garden Gate, 276.

Manzarah of Halbah Gate, 292.

Manzarah of Mustansiriyah, 268.

MarigHah, 195.

Mardsid-al^JttM, author of, 344 ;
mistakes in, 134, 271, 286.

Mariwizah Suburb, 128.

Marble House of Tihirid IJarim,
120.

Index

371

Maxco Polo, 343, 346.

Miristin for Bimirist^n, 62.
Market. See S^ik and Suwaykah.
Market of 'Abd-al-WahMb, 141.
Market of Badr, 270, 272.

► Market of Satiety, 222. ‘

Market of the Nizllmiyah, 299.
MarkA of the Perfumers, 271-3.
Market of the Syrian Gate, 129,
130.

Markets of the Round City, 26.
Ma'ruf Karkhi, tomb, 79, 97-100,
334 , 350 - 2 -
Marv. See Merv.

Marv-ar-Rudh, 126.

Marwin II, Caliph, 4.

Masanneh or dyke, 281. See
Musannit.

Mashhad. See Meshed.

Mashhad *Ali, 322.
Mashhad-al-Mintakah, 90, 96.
Mashra'ah, meaning wharf, 85.
Mashra*at-al-As, 85.
Mashra'at-al-^attlLbin, i8i.
Mashra'at-al-Ibrtyin, 265, 266.
Mashra'at-al-Katt^nin, i8i.
Mashra'at-ar-Rawiyi, i8i.
Mashra'at, of the Khuld, 102.
Mashra'at, of the Nizdmiyah, 299.
Masjid. See Mosque.

Maskin District, 49.

Maskin, Prince Silih al-, 108.
Mas*<id, Sultan, 204, 327.
Mas'ladah Quarter, 296, 297.
Mas'udi, the historian, 316.
Matbak Prison, 27.

Mayd^n of Mamuni Palace, 244,
250.

Maydin of Mu izz-ad-Dawlah, 181.
Mayd^n of Rus^ah, 197.

Mayddn of Sabuktagin, 235, 236.
Maydin Quarter and Palace, 296,
297.

Maymfiniyah for Mamuniyah,343.

Mazrafah, 210.

Meadows of Gold, history by
Mas'iidl, 316.

Mecca, i, 2.

Medina, i, 2, 15.

Melon House or Fruit Market, 85,
342.

Melons, called Dastabiiyah, 258.

Merv, Suburb of Men of (W. B.),
128. See Marv.

Meshed in Khurisin, 147, 194.
See Mashhad.

MiW^s, 13.

Mills, Bridge of the Patrician’s,
148.

Mills, Gate of the, 84.

Mills of the Patrician, 142-4, 30S.

Mills of ^ubaydah, 113.

Minaret, Green, of Bukhariot
Mosque, 134.

Minaret of IJiimayd, 137.

Minaret, Tall, in Mosque of Mu-
sayyib, 59.

Mintakah Shrine, 90, 96.

Monasteries (Christian) in East
and West Baghdad, 210-12.

Monastery. See Dayr.

Money-changers’ Market, 272.

Mongol siege of Baghdad, 292,
302, 340-3.

Mosque. See J^mi*.

Mosque of Bardthd, 154-6, 320.

Mosque of Ibn-al-Muttalib, 87.

Mosque of Ibn Raghb^n, 6i, 95.

Mosque of KalwMhd, 320.

Mosque of Khudayr, 197.

Mosque of Rus^fah, 188, 196, 280,
346, 354 , 356 .

Mosque of the Caliph or of the
Palace (E.B.), 243, 252,253, 269,
278, 317, 320, 324, 338, 343.

Mosque of the Harb Gate, 125.

Mosque of the Round City or of
Mansar, 19, 30, 33-7, 346, 356.

B b 2

372

Index

Mosque of the Sultan, 240, 282,
3«6, 339> 346*

Mosque of the Zubaydiyah Fief,
1 15, n6.

Mosques, Friday, of Baghdad in
the time of Istakhri and Ibn
Hawkal, 320; in the time of
Khatib, 324 ; in the time of Ibn
Jubayr, 334.

Mosul, 9.

Mound of the Ass, 78.

Mu'alla and the Mu'alli Canal,
176, 228, 244, 250, 282-7.

Mu'alla Canal Quarter, or New
Baghdad, 280.

Mu'Hwiyah, Caliph, 2.

Mu'azzam Gate and Shrine (Abu
Hanifah), 170, 192, 225, 281, 282,
348, 352-4.

Muhaddithin Bridge, 76.

MuMjir Fief, 59.

Muhammad-at-Taki or al-Jawir,
the Imi.m, 161-4.

Muhammad-az-ZayysLt, Wazir, 75.

Muhammad ibn 'Abd-Allah, the
Tihirid, I19, 311-3-

Muhammad ibn Abu *Awn, 125.

Muhammad ibn Zakariyi-ar-Rizi,
the physician, 62.

Muhammad Muktaf!, Caliph, 260,
273, 294, 328-30.

Muhammad, the Saljuk Sultan,
328-30.

Muhammad the Alid, 15.

Muhammad, the Prophet, vision
of, and mark of his hand, 1 16 .

Muhawwal Gate and Quarter, 46,
146-9, 318.

Muhawwal, meaning of, 73,

Muhawwal town and road, 50, 60,

69, 74, 146-57, 304-

Mu*m, the Alid, his tomb, 352.

Mu izz-ad-Dawlah, 231-3, 302,
31^, 319; his tomb, 161-4.

Muizztyah Dyke, 232, 233, 284,

319*

Mu^bir-ash-Shuhadi, 158, 164.
MukS.bir B^b-at-Tibn, 160-5.
Mukaddasi, 319-22.

Mukanna', the Veiled Prophet o^
Khurisdn, 222.
Mukitil-al-'Akki, 130.

Mukharrim, 219.

Mukharrim Gate, 225.

Mukharrim Quarter, 169-76, 217-

230, 305-

Mukhtdrah Quarter, 287.

Muktadi, Caliph, 283, 292, 293,
326.

Muktadir, Caliph, 115, 154, 231,
323 ; death of and burial-place,
120, 195, 206; receives the
Greek envoy, 255-7.
Muktadirfyah, mistake for Mu^a-
diyah, 286.

Muktadiyah Quarter, 283-6.
Muktafi and Muktafi, Caliphs,
260. See also under *AH and
Muhammad.

Mules and elephants, 237,

M finis, Palace of, 206, 231, 232.
Murabba'ah Abu-1-* Abbfis, 126.
Murabba*ah-al-Furs, 127, 128.
Murabba'ah-az-Zayyfit, 78.
Murabba'ah Sa'id, 221, 222.
Murabba'ah Sfilih, 81.
Murabba'ah Shabtb, 126, 129,
130.

Murabba'ah, Square Palace, 259.
Murfid IV, Sultan, 291, 346, 348.
Mfisfi-al-Kfizim, the Imfim, tomb
of, 161, 334.

Mfisfi Canal, 176, 177, 219-229,
287.

Mfisd, son of the Caliph Amin, 306.
Musallfi, Chapel of Vows, 204.
Musannfit-al-Mu*izziyah, 233.
Musawwir Road, 77.

Index

Musayyib Fief, 59.

Miishajin for Mushjir or Mushkir,
Fief of, 229, 249, 275.

Mustadi, Caliph, 260, 280; his
tomb, 87, 195.

^Musta'm, Caliph, 113, 119, 171-3,
203, 204, 247, 31 1-4 ; his tomb,

i9s-

Mustakfi, Caliph, 118, 231; his
tomb, 194, 195.

Mustansir, Caliph, 337, 338 ; his
tomb, 194, 195.

Mustansiriyah College, 266-70,
378, 299, 337, 346, 349-
Mustansiriyah Mosque, 269, 278.
Mustarshid, Caliph, 259, 275 ; his
tomb, 195.

Musta*sim, Caliph, 273, 293, 342,
343 ; his tomb and that of his
daughter, 195.

Mustazhir, Caliph, 272, 273, 279,
283, 284, 323, 327, 335.
Mu'tadid, Caliph, 1 8, 35, 180, 225,
229, 248-52, 314 ; his tomb, 120,

194, 195 -

Mu tamid, Caliph, 193, 194, 229,
247-9; tomb, 195.

Mu tasim, Caliph, 13, 157, 189, 221,
246, 247, 275, 310, 31 1 ; his
tomb, 193, 194.

Mu'tazz, Caliph, 171, 247, 31 1-3.
Muthammanah, Octagon Palace,

259.

Mutf, Caliph, 259.

Muttaki, Caliph, 1 56 ; his tomb,

195. •

Muwaffak, 247, 248, 325.

Myrtle or Rayhim, 271.

Myrtle Wharf, 85,

Nab^wari for Baniwaxi, 68.
NahhUsin Gate, 68.

Nahr (watercourse, canal, or
river), 56, 294.

373

Nahr Abu *Attib, 52, 61, 62, 91.

Nahrawin Canal, 48,' 174.

Nahrawin, town, 217, 307.

Nahr Batitiyi, 55, 1 1 1, 123-5, 132,
133 -

N ahr Bazzizin, 52, 5 3, 63, 77, 78, 91 •

Nahr Bin or Nahrabin, 174-6,
287, 307.

Nahr B6k District, 14, 50.

Nahr Daj^j, 53, 77, 78, 91.

Nahr Fadl, 175, 176, 200, 202, 234.

Nahr *!si, 5, 44, 49 - 56 , 81-94,
15 1-3, 156, 157,321 , 355 ; bridges
of, 71-6.

Nahr IsMkiyah, 48. .

Nahr Ja'fari or Ja*fariyah, 175*

Nahr Kall^yin, 53, 78, 79 , 81-4,
336.

Nahr KarkhiyA, 29, 52-6, 67-80,
I 49 -S 3 > 336.

Nahr Kilib, 53, 69, 74 , 78.

Nahr KflthS., 49.

Nahr Mahdt, 175, 176, 202, 206.

Nahr Milik, 49.

Nahr Mu alii, 176, 228, 244, 250,
282-7.

Nahr Miisi, 176, 177, 219-29, 287.

Nahr Razin, 52, 54.

Nahr Rufayl, 71.

Nahr Sarit (Great), 9, 14, 15,
50-4, 73 , 91-101, 148, 149, 3x5,
355 .

Nahr Sarit (Little), 51, no, 134,
141, 142, 148, 149-

Nahr Sarsar, 49.

Najrin, Monk of, 213.

Nakhkhisin Gate, 68.

Nisir, Caliph, 240, 273-5, 279-81,
291, 295, 333, 335 ; <ieath of his
son, 100.

Nasr ibn “Abd-AUah, 137.

Nasr ibn Milik, Market and
Gate, 207, 214, 215.

Nasriyah Quarter, 137.

374

Index

Nebuchadnezzar, bricks of, 9.
Needle-makers* Wharf, 265, 266.
Nestorian Christians, 207, 208.
Nestorian Church of the Virgins,
82.

Nestorian Churches in Baghdad,
209-12.

Nestorian Monks, 12, 13; sent to
China, 213.

New Archway, 286.

New Bridge, 52, 91-3.

New Moslems, 3. ,

Niebuhr, Carstein, 349.
Niz^m-al-Mulk, Wazir, 100, 159,
162, 239, 296-300, 326.
Nizimtyah College, Market, and
Wharf, 88, 267, 296-300, 326,
355 -

Nubian Gate, 272, 274-6.
Nut-house, 91.

Nut-market Street, 286.
Nuzhat-al-Kuli^b^ geography,

347.

Octagon Palace, 259.
Oil-merchants’ Bridge, 74-6.
Oil-merchants’ Quadrangle, 78.
Old Bridge, 50, 54, 60, 93.

Old Cemetery, 153.

Old Tank, 150.

^Omar, Caliph, 71.

'Omar Khayyilm, 298.

Omayyads, 3, 4.

Orientation of Baghdad, 315.
Orientation of Gates of the Round
City, 41.

Orientation of Mosque of Mansur,
34 -

Orphan School, 129.

'Othmin ibn Nuhayk Suburb, 128.

Pages (Ghulim) of the Caliph, 26;

of the Chamberlain, 123.
Painter, Road of the, 77.

Palace. See under D 4 r and l^sr.
Palace Bridge, 87, 183-6, 265.
Palace Mosque, 243, 252, 253, 269,

278, 317, 320, 324, 338, 343;

square of, 272, 284.

Palade of *Adud-ad-Dawlah,
234-8.

Palace of 'Adud-ad-Din, 9^

Palace of Asmi, 218.

Palace of Hini, 132.

Palace of Ibn-al-Furit, 221.

Palace of Ibn-al-Khasib, 86, 223,
226.

Palace of Ibn MuWah, 220.

Palace of Khuzaymah, 218.

Palace of Mu'tasim, 221.

Palace of Peacocks, 259.

Palace of Perfection, 253.

Palace of Sa*td-al-Harasht, 221,
222.

Palace of Sa'td-al-Khatib, 129.
Palace of the Chosroes (Ctesi-
phon), 37, 253 > 254 -
Palace of the Cotton Market, 265.
Palace of the Date Market, 266.
Palace of tl\e Golden Gate, 19,
30-3, 242-S, 309 > 318.

Palace of the Green Dome, 31-3.
Palace of the Lady, 273.

Palace of the Mayddn Kh^Qis, 297.
Palace of the New Kiosk, 257.
Palaces of the Princess, 266, 272.
Palace of the Sultan (Buyid and
Saljiik), 178, 204, 231-40, 282,
319-23, 326, 328-30.

Palace of the Tree, 256-8.

Palace of *Ubayd Allah, 218.
Palace of 'UmUrah, 227.

Palaces of the Caliphs (E. B.),
extent of, 259, 263, 265 ; gates
of, 265.

Palaces of younger sons of Caliph
Mansiir, 31.

Palm-basket weavers, 272.

Index

Palm-trees in Caliph’s garden,
257.

Pipak (or B^bak), 83.
Paper-makers, 137.

Paper-sellers’ Market, 92.
Jlapdbeicros, 250 .

Patriarchy Nestorian, 208.
Patfiarch or Patrician, 145.
Patrician, Mill of the, i 42 - 4 > 3 ^^-
Patrician, sent by Greek Emperor,
his remarks on Karkh, 65.

Pay Office, 31.

Peacock Palace, 259.

Perfumers’ Market, 271-3.

Periods, five, of Abbasid history,

301-

Persian Fief Quarter (E. B.), 116,
292, 296.

Persian Tower (E. B.), 292, 341-3.
Persians, House of the (W,B.),
150.

Persians’ Quadrangle and Suburb
(W. B.), 127, 128.

Pharos of Alexandria, 28$.

Pilgrim road to Mecca, 57.
Pitched Gate, 224-6.
Pitch-workers* Street (E. B.), 224.
Pitch-workers’ Street (W. B.), 78,
91.

Place of Sacrifice, 276.

Place of Vows, 305.

Pleiades Palace, 176, 227, 250,
251, 307^

Poets’ Assembly Hall, 218.

Police, chief of Baghdad, 31,
106.

Polo Ground, 292.

Polo (Suljin), 244.

Pomegranate Bridge, 75.

Pool of Zalzal, 52, 6i.

Poor Tax, Office of, 59.

Porcelain Bridge, 148.

Porte Murde, 292, 348.

Porte Noire, 294.

Poulterers* Canal and Quarter, 53, i
77, 78, 91-

Princess, Palace of the, 266, 272,
Prison of the Matbak, 27.

Prison of the Syrian Gate, 130, 13 1.
Prison, State, for Abbasid princes,
258.

Privy Chamber Gate, Hall of, 259.
Privy Gate, 270.

Professor of Law in MuStansiriyah,
268.

Public Gate, 255-9, 274-6.

Pulpit of HIlrfin-ar-Rashid, 1 55.
Pyramid to Sphinx, distance from
285.

Quadrangle. See Murabba'ah.
Quadrants, outer and iimer, of
Round City, 23-5.

Rabf , the Chamberlain and Fief
of, 58, 65, 67, 68, 123, 143, 197,
332.

Ridi, Caliph, 155 ; his tomb, 194,
195*

Radhdh, 194.

Rahbah. See Square.

Rahbah J§.mi*-al-Kasr, 272, 284.
Rahbah Suwayd, 68.

Rakkah, city, 71.

Rakkah Gardens, 261.

Rakkah of Kalwidh^., 295.
Rakkah of the Shammistyah, 203.
Ramaliyah, 134.

Ram and Lion, street of, ill, 133.
Ramyah-Sahm (arrow-flight), 285.
Rasis ^al't (tin-plate), 257 -
Rashid-ad-Din, historian, 341.
Rashid, Caliph. See Mansflr.
Rashid, Caliph. See HirCln
Rishidiyah, 174.

Riwandi insurrection, 6.

Rawdah Island, 285.

Rawl^^t (Ef B.), IX.

376

Index

Rawlinson, Sir H. C., 9, 350, 351.

Rayasinah Fief, 61, 95.

Rayhin, sweet basil or myrtle,
271.

Rayhiniytn Market, 229, 271-3,
283.

Rayhintyiii Palace, 266, 271-4,

3^57.

Rayy^n Quarter, 293, 296.

R^zt or Rhazes, physician, 62.

Razin Canal, 52, 54, 61, 62, 91.

Reeds for bonding walls, 20.

Reed-weavers’ Quarter, 78.

Review Ground, 106.

Riding House, 255.

Riots (in A. H. 422), 182 ; (in A. H,
520), 275 ; (in A. H. 601), 97.

Road. See under Darb, Sb^ri',
and Tarik ; also under Street.

Road called ‘ Between the Palaces,’
218.

Road of Al-Ghdmish, 139.

Road of Cages, 134,

Road of Ibn Abu 'Awn, 124.

Road of Mahdi Canal, 199, 201.

Road of Sa'd, 223, 225.

Road of Skilfs, 197.

Road of the Bridge, 199.

Road of the Fullers, 134.

Road of the Kahtabahs, 140.

Road of the Painter, 77.

Road of the Square, 197.

Road of the Two Archways, 284-6,

Roads in East Baghdad, 173.

Rocks, Street of, 150, 151, 308.

Round City of Mansur : arcades,
25 ; bricks used, 9 ; central area,
18, 27, 28 ; destruction of walls,
43 j *310? 318 ; ditch and dyke,
21; foundation of, 15, 303;
gates, I7> 19? 20, 27; markets,
2$ ; plan drawn out, 17 ; posi-
tion of, 353 ; quadrants of, 22,
24; size, 18 ; squares, inner and

outer, 23, 28 ; streets, 27; walls
of, outer and inner, 19, 20, 27 ;
water-conduits, 29.

Rufayl Canal, 71.

RuM. See Mills.

Rum and Rumiyin, Greeks, 207.

Rum, Dir, and Dayr (E. B.), 207-
210, 214. ♦

Rumiyin, Dir (W. B.), 149.

Rummin Bridge, 75.

Rusifah (East Baghdad), meaning
'causeway,' 189; founded, 41,
187; other places of this name,
190 ; mosque, 188, 196, 280, 346,
354>356; palace, 189; quarter,
169-75, 189-98, 305, 312-4, 334.

Rushayd Suburb, 12S.

Sabibat for Siniyit, 149.

Sabuktagin, the chamberlain, 235,
236.

Sibir Monastery, 210.

Sibir, Palace of, 185.

Sa'd-al-Wasif or al-Khadim,
226.

Safariyah for Zafariyah, 288.

Safatiyin, 272.

Safiih, Caliph, 4, 5, 38 ; his tomb,
194.

Sahn 'Atik (Mosque of Mansir),

35 -

Sa'id, 76.

Sa‘id-al-Harashi, Palace and
Quadrangle, 221, 222.

Sa*id-al-Khatib Palace, 129,

Saint George Monastery, 210.

Sil, village, 62.

Saladin, 274, 298.

Silih, Prince, Palace of, 108.

Silih Quadrangle, 81.

Saljik Mosque, 240, 282, 326, 339,
346.

Saljik Palaces, 233-5, 323 > 326,
328-30.

Index

377

Saljuk supremacy, period of, 302,
322-31.

Saltanah, D^r. See Buyid Palaces.
Saltanah, Ddr, of the T^j Palace,
253, 262.

► Samilij Monastery, 202.

S^arri, 13, 169, 194, 195, 246-9,
31^-4.

Sanctuary. See Haramayn and
Harim.

Sanctuary Gate, 276.

Sanctuary of Vows, 205.
Sanduk-as-SiL'it, 267.

Sanjdr, Sultan, 302, 331.

Sapor Monastery, 210.

Sapor, Palace ofj 185,

Sardt Canal, Great, 9, 14, 15,
50-4, 73, 9i-“ioi, 148, 149, 315,
355-

Sarit Canal, Little, 51, no, 134,
141, 142, 148, 149.

Sarllt Point, Convent of, 98.
Sar^y-as-Sultin, 235.
Sardanapalus, 9.

Sari-as-Sakati, 79, 99.
Sari-ibn-al-Hutam, 206.

Sarjis for Sarkhis, monastery, 210.
Sarsar Canal, 49.

Satiety Market, 222.

Sawdd of Baghdad, 48.

Sawik and the Saww^kln, 81, 82.
School of the Orphans, 129.
Scribes, mistake for School, q, v.
Seleucia. See Maddin,
Si7/xaXovof, 202.

Sergius Monastery, 210.

Shabib Quadrangle, 126, 129,

130-

Sh^bushti, 21 1.

Shdfi*ite law-school, 298.

Sh^h ibn Sahl, 150.

Shahir Siij, 136.

Shdhin ShAh, 240.

Shajarah, Ddr, 256, 257.

Shamilah, 180.

Shammasiyah Gate, 170-5, 19B,
199, 201, 203, 206, 219.
Shammasiyah, meaning of, 202.
Shammasiyah Palace, 231, 232.
Shammilsiyah Plain, 203.
Shammasiyah Quarter, 109, 169-
176, 199-216, 305, 312-4.
Sharaf-al-MuIk Abu-Rida, 191.
Sharafdniyah, 129.

Sharawi Fief, 59.

Shdr Shk, 136.

Shdri*-aP*Akdayn, 284- 6.
Sh 4 ri*-al-A*?awij 224, 225,
255.

Shiri'-al-IjCayyArin, 224,

Shiri -al-Mayddn, 197.
Shiri*-al-Musawwir, 77.

Shiri' Ddr-ar-Rakik, 123, 124.
Sh^ri* Karm-al-'Arsh (or Mu*ar-
rash), 221.

Shiri' Quarter, 46, 106-8, 333.
Shari* Sa*d-al-Wasif, 223, 225.
Sharkiyah Quarter (E. B.) or
Rusifah, 188.

Sharkiyah Quarter (W, B*), 53, 77,
90,91.

Shd^ibiyah or ShAtiyah, D^r, 253.
ShajJ-al-Hayy, 8.

Shawk Bridge, 53, 74-9*

Shaw{ - al - F aras (horse-gallop ),

285.

Shi'ah Shrine at Bar^thll, 154.
Shi'ah Shrine at MasjidMintal^ah,
90, 96.

Shi'ah tendencies of Buyids, 318.
Shibli, his tomb, 160.

ShGniziyah Cemetery, Greater, 79.
Shdniziyah Cemetery, Lesser, 161.
Shurjah, Chief of Police, 31, rod.
Shustar, 97.

Sieges of Baghdad, hrst (Amfn),
303-6; second (Musta*in),3n ^
314; third (ManfOr Rdshid),

378

Index

^2.*j ; fourth (Muhammad Muk-
taii), 328-30; fifth (Mongol),
340 - 3 -

Silk House, 137, 139.

Silk stuffs manufactured, 137, 138.
Sin, meaning either China or
Date-palm, and Siniyit Bridge,
I4B«

Sind elephantmen, 256.

Sixty, Hall of the, 235.

Skiffs on Tigris, 184.

Skiffs, Road of, 197.

Slave-dealers* Gate, 68.

Slaves* House, 123, 124.
Soap-boilers* Quarter, 78, 91.
Solomon, Gate of King, 20.
Sphinx to Pyramid, distance, 285.
Square of Khuld Palace, 200.
Square of K^fah Gate, 58, 59.
Square of Palace Mosque, 272,
284.

Square of Suwayd, 68.

Square Palace, 259.

Squares, outer and inner, of Round
City, 22, 25.

Stables of the Caliph, 106.

Stables of the Freedmen, 59,
State-prison of Abbasid princes,
258.

Straight Road, 173, 196.

Straw Gate, 115, 123.

Straw Gate Cemetery, 160-5.
Straw-merchants* Bridge, 124, 126.
Street See Darb, Shdri', and
Tarilk ; also under Road.

Street of Abu Hanifah, 27.

Street of *Amr the Greek, 220.
Street of Bricks (E. B.), 282.
Street of Bricks (W. B.), 84.
Street of Horse-guards, 27.

Street of Pitch-workers, 78, 224.
Street of the Mu adhdhin, 27.
Street of the Rocks, 150, 15 1, 308.
Street of the Vine, 221.

Street of the Water-carriers, 27.

Su Capi, 349.

SMi Monastery of Tflthah, 79.
Suk-ad-Dawwibb, 227.
Suk-al-*Atikah, 90.

Shk-al-'Atsh, 221-4.
SHk-al-Bim^ristan, 105.
Suk-al-Ghazl, 253, 269, 278!*
Suk-al-M^st^n, 105.
Suk-al-Warriktn, 92.
Suk-an-Nizimiyah, 299.
Shk-ar-RayMmyin, 229, 271-3,
283.

Suk-ar-Riyy, 222.

Sdk-as-Sighah, 218.

Sfik-as-Sarf, 272.

Sdk-as-SuMn, 282.
Slik-ath-Thalithah (E.B.), 95, 1 71-
3, 197, 228, 266, 268, 277, 283 ;
of later Baghdad, 299.
SiiVath-Thalithah (W. B.), 68.
Suk Baghdid 12; loi.

S^k Ghaiib, 67.

Suk Haytham, 136.

Silk Ja'far, 200, 201.

Shk Kh§iid, 201.

Suk Nasr, 214.

SHkof Abu-l-Ward, 60.

Shk Tutush, 298.

Suk Yahyi, 199-201, 206.
Sulaymin, Palace of Prince, 108.
Sulaym^nthe Magnificent, Sultan,
345 *

Sulaymin the T^hirid, 13 1.

Suljin (Polo), 244, 292.

Sultan, Gate of the, 266, 281, 282,
341 *

Sultan, Market of the, 282.
Sultan, Palace of the. See Buyid
Palaces.

Sumayiiyah (Skiffs), 184.

Sums spent on Baghdad, 40.
Sums spent on the Buyid Palace,
238.

Index

Siiniyi, 90.

Surra-man-r^, 13; and see Si-
marri,

Suwayd, Square of, 68.

Suwaykah-al-IJarashJ, 222.

*Suway^h Hajjij, 226.

Swamp, Great, of Euphrates and
Tfgris, 7.

Sweepings, Place of, 15 1-3,' 308.

Syrian Gate, 17.

Syrian Gate Canal, 54, 55.

Syrian Gate, name of village of
the Khdlis District, 203.

Syrian Gate, Road of, nr, 122-8.

Tabdkdt-i-Ndfirt, history, 340-

Tibak ibn Samyah, 83.

Tabari, 303, 310-6.

Tabbinin Bridge, 124, 126.

Tdbik Canal, 53, 69, 79, 81-4.

Tdbik Canal Quarter, 336.

Tibiyah-az-Zawtyah, 292.

Taby silk, 138.

Tdhir,43,93» 1^0,119, 144,307-10.

Tahirid Palace (JJarlm), 119-21,
327 ; tombs here, 195.

Tahirid Trench, 51, 52, 54-6, iio-
128, 355.

Tahirids, no, 119, 31 1.

Tdi*, Caliph, 118, 162, 270, 271.

Tdj-ad-Dawlah Tutush, 298.

Tdj-al-Mulk and the Tijiyah, 288.

Tdj Palace (earlier), 39, 171, 228,
229, 243, 250-6, 318 ; garden,
258 ; great hall, 259 ; palace
burnt, 260.

Tij Palace (later), 261, 278, 327.

Tik-al-Harrini, 90, 91, 96.

TlLk4t-al- Akkt, Ghitrif and Abu
Suwayd, 130.

Tak Gate, ,178, 181, 218, 320.

Talisman Gate, 281, 291, 348, 349.

Tank of the Ansdr, Diiid, and
Haylinah, 223.

379

Tank of tin-plate in garden of the
Caliph, 257.

Tank, Old, 150. See Pool.
Tanners’ Yards, 1 56.

Tdrath, the Greek envoy, 143.
Tartk-al-Jisr, 173, 199.
Tartk-az-Zawarfk, 197.

Tank Mustakim, 196.

Tarsus, 195.

Ta^s-al-IJaramayn, 159.
Tavernier, 8, 348.

Tha'aiib, Dayr, 210.

Thaiathah, Abwdb, 203.
Thaiathah, Safe in W. B. and in
E. B. See Tuesday Market.
Theophilus, Emperor, 275.

Thirst Market, 221-4.

Thorn Bridge, 53, 74-9.

Thread Market, 253, 269, 278.
Three Gates Quarter, 203.
Threshold Gate, 274-6.

Thurayyd Palace, 176, 227, 250,
251, 307.

Tibn Gate, 115, 123, 160.

Tibn or Broken Straw, 115.
Tigris, course of, during Middle
Ages, 7 ; course as regards Bagh-
dad, 315; its waters used for
irrigation, 48,

Tiles, blue, 36, 79.

Timur, 37, 166, 345-
Tin-plate, 257.

Toll of Tigris boats, 184.

Tombs of the Caliphs, 193-5, 343,
348.

Tops, Gate of, 276.

Traditionists’ Bridge, 76.
Treasury, 31.

Tree of gold and silver in Palace
of Tij, 256,

Trench of THhir, 51, 52, 54-6,
110-28, 355-
Triple Divide, 22B.

Tuesday Market (W. B.), 68.

380

Index

Tuesday Market and Gate (E. B.),
95 > i 7 x- 3 > 197 , 228, 266, 268,
277, 283.

Tuesday Market of later Baghdad,
299,

Tughril, meaning falcon, 229.

Tughril Beg, 238, 239, 302, 322.

Turkish body-guard, period of
tyranny of, 302, 311-14.

Tils, 194; palace at, 147.

Tustariytn Quarter, 94, 97, 98.

Tuthah Suburb, 79.

Tutush, and Tutushi Hospital
and Market, 296-8.

'Ubayd Allah, the Alid, 205.

'Ubayd Allah, Palace of, 218.

*Um^ah ibn Abu- 1 -Khasib, 227.

‘UmUrah ibn Hamzah, 117.

Umm Habib Palace, 197.

Umm Ja'fax (Zubaydah, q. v.) Mill,
142 ; Palace, 103.

Underground passage to Palace of
the Pleiades, 251.

Upper Bridge of Boats, 107, 118,
122-6, X77~86, 198.

UshnS-n Bridge, 75.

Veiled Prophet of Khuris^n,
222.

Virgins, monastery of the, 82.

Waddih Palace (E, B.), 198.

WaddHh Palace, Mosque, and
Quarter (W. B.), 58, 92.

Wall Canal, 175.

Wall of East Baghdad, ^rlier, 1 14,
170, 172, 312; later, 183, 264,
279-81, 323, 32*^ 33S.^

Wall of Palaces, 264. y

Wall of Round City, 18-26.

Wall of West Baghdad, 114, 172,
312.

Ward^ntyah, 126.

Wardiyah Cemetery, 287, 288.

Warr^ktn, 92.

Warth^l or Warthil^, 67, 83, 91.

Wasif the Eunuch, 180.

Wisit, 8, 20, 195 ; street of men
of, 63.

Wassif, historian, 341.

Water Gate, 349.

Water-jars, 197; wharf of, 181,

W^thik, Caliph, 66.

Wharf. See Mashra*ah.

Wharf of Needle-makers, 265,266.

Wharf of the Myrtle-tree, 85.

Wharf of the Nizimiyah, 299.

White Gate, 291.

White Palace of Chosroes, 38, 39.

White Sheep, Turkoman dynasty,
345 -

Wild Beast Park of Mam^ni
Palace, 244.

Wild Beast Park of theTij Palace,
255 - 7 -

Willow Tree Gate, 265, 266.

Wood-cutters’ Wharf, 181.

Wustini Gate, 281, 288, 348.

Xativa Palace, .253.

Yahyi ibn-al-Walid, 201,

Yahyi, the Barmecide; and his
Market, 1 99-201, 206, 243.

Ya*kubi, 47, 303, 314-6.

Yikut, 335-8; mistakes in text
of, 29, 84, no, 233, 271, 286,
287.

Yikhtah, mistake for Binukah,
228.

YUsir and the Yflsiriyah Bridge,
Gate, and Quarter, 74, 76, 151,
152, 3I3> 321.

Yathrib, i.

Zafar and the Zafaiiyah Gate and
Suburb, 281, 283, 288-95.

Index

381

Zahir, Caliph, 163.

Zahir Garden, 176, 219, 220, 232,
238, 240.

Zalzal the lute-player and the
Zalzal Pool, 52, 61.

?andarM and Zandaward, 20,
179.

Zandfward Bridge of Boats, 179,

296, 297.

Zandaward Monasteiy, 211, 296,

297.

Zanj rebellion, 247.

Zawri (W. B.), il*

Zayyittn Bridge, 74-6.

Zayy^t Quadrangle, 78.

Zubaydah, wife of Hariin-ar-
Rishtd, 306-9 ; Palace of
(Karir), 103 ; tomb of, in
K^zimayn, 161-5 ; false tomb,
100, 350-2.

Zubaydiyah Fief and Palace, 54,
113-7, 124.

Zubd Bridge, 148.

Zuhayr ibn Muhammad, 117.

Zuhayriyah Quarter (of Kufah
Gate), 59.

Zuhayriyah Quarter (of Zubay-
diyah), 1 17.

Zurayk, 75, 76.

Zui'aykiyah Monastery, 212,

FINIS